Are you in the Race?

Are we still infested with racist thoughts? Is racism still prevalent in our pulse? Haven’t we abandoned it yet? Not completely says the Professor of Religion at Princeton University, Cornel West (b. 1953). Sometime back, the New Yorker profiled West in which it is said that he was suspected of carrying drugs just because he was driving his car slowly on his way to Princeton. When the cop stopped him and quizzed him about his identity, West told him that he teaches at Princeton. To which the cop said that so I must be the President of United States. Meaning that the cop was utterly unwilling to believe that a blackman can teach in an Ivy League university like Princeton. Cornel West has been critical of the injustice still met out to blacks in America as well as outside it. He has gone on record saying that if America is ambivalently promoting racism, Britain still hasn’t been whitewashed of its white supremacy. West, who is a Baptist minister, is unable to gulp the statistic that blacks who are 7% of the American population make up for 50% of prisoners. In 2002, Cornel West had issued this oft-cited statement: “It’s simple, but it cuts very deep. If you love black folk, you hate white supremacy. If you love human beings, you love justice.”

The great Civil Rights leader and another Baptist minister, Martin Luther King Jr. (1929-1968) was initially hopeful of a common destiny for blacks and whites and dreamt that one day his four little children wouldn’t judged by the “color of their skin” but by the “content of their character.” His dream was later turned into a nightmare as America waged the Vietnam War to impress him of its stubbornness in not listening to the powerless voices. He was ultimately embittered with the circumstances emerging after the signing of Civil Rights Bill in 1965. MLK felt that it would be better if blacks become self-sustaining and live in harmony – if not melted – with the whites. Race consciousness is a double-edged sword: on one hand, the racial identity unites them as a group to fight the opressors and on the other, helps develop vibrant cultures that are surprisingly plural, as is evident from American history. Yet, King wanted to decouple the racial identity from color consciousness - so that appreciation for black culture among whites increases. Color consciousness recognizes that all the cultural values that have been tied to the history of racial oppression are potentially open to all individuals, regardless of their color. "Sensible and appropriate integration" into the prevalent American culture was what King wanted his people to do. Till this day, this has been intensely criticized because still today, few whites invite blacks to their homes or would be willing to live in black neighborhoods.

I think blacks and by extension, all oppressed classes, should through their own actions bring out their latent potentials and one by one progress into a humble power that challenges the oppressors with their goodness, not spitefulness. And, as MLK hoped, let’s anticipate that “one day on the red hills of Georgia, sons of slaves and sons of former slaveowners sit together at the table of brotherhood” and talk together as fellow humans. Change is evolutionary and it will take time for a genuine makeover in the mindset. It will be a futile exercise to think that overnight due to some measures, everything’s gonna change. Cos, even if some strategies outwardly help people to bond together, the inward connection still remains to be coupled up.

Cornel West uses rap and hiphop to get Blacks together and has been a controversial figure. He left Harvard due to a tiff with Harvard’s former President, Larry Summers. West was alleged that he was too lenient with grades and had devoted more time for political activism than academics. West has worked to promote the presidency of Al Sharpton in 2004 and has participated in the Million Man March organized by the National of Islam leader, Louis Farrakhan. Whatever may be the hullabaloo brewing around West, I think black intellectuals like him and Henry Louis Gates Jr. must behave more responsibly and scrutinize their words and actions before they are acted out.