Harvard prof voices racial issues
By KIFLIN TURNER
News Writer
Cornel West on Tuesday urged the continuation of education through open discourse in promoting awareness of the unsettling social situations that continue to exist not only in America, but also in the international sphere.
"I hope I say something that thoroughly unsettles you," West said. "There's a transformative possibility in the very experience of critical questioning and doubting, and interrogating whatever the dogma," said West.
"It Takes a Village to Plant the Future" was the theme of the renowed Harvard professor's lecture to the Notre Dame community as a part of three days of Martin Luther King, Jr. celebrations on campus.
"Martin Luther King Jr. comes out of a tradition of a particular people who are the questioning, inquisitive, curious people of a certain kind of dogmas-especially the dogmas of white supremacy," he said.
West argued against the complacency and the stagnation of thought and action, and instead promoted hope of a progressive movement towards reform.
"Look at the life of Martin Luther King Jr. and not only him, because he's not to be viewed as an icon put on a pedestal to be worshipped — he's a wave in an ocean — he's part of a tradition of vital vibrant tradition."
Dispelling the notion that tradition is inheritable, West affirmed that tradition is something that the generations must fight for in order to preserve its authenticity.
"We're talking about a tradition of struggle when we talk about Martin Luther King, Jr.," he said.
The struggle is to define what it is to be human in a society that has historically denied the right of humanity to African-Americans.
"For a particular people who have their humanity systematically and thoroughly called into question every day of their lives the question of what it means to be human takes on some urgency," said West.
The struggles towards egalitarian liberties of modern African-Americans are often permeated by a psychic violence of self-hating in a society that degrades and denigrates, said West.
"What is slavery but social death?" asked West, citing that the early existences of African slaves was devoid of equal social status and value.
Years later, this demeaning process of objectifying a people and their history has not only survived but it is a psychological barrier that often prevents social progress and denies the rights of African-Americans today through negative images portrayed through pop-culture and the media.
The concept of a global village was the goal of King in establishing an interdependent community that strives to strengthen an inclusive democracy by insuring the equal rights of all of its members through education and discourse.
"The ways in which villages are created has much to do not only with the vision and courage of those who reside in those villages, but the circumstances and conditions in which they are constructed," said West.
"Martin Luther King Jr. was the most visible leader of that movement to accent multi-racial democratic possibilities."
Through finding and uplifting the voices that demand equality and a forum on which to make those voices heard, West endorsed the idea of active democratic thought and action.
"It's a precious notion — that Democratic discourse — very precious notion, the idea that everyday people, ordinary people's voices ought to be heard at the highest levels of the decision making processes at institutions that guide and regulate their lives."
All News Stories for Wednesday, January 24, 2001
