Kevin's Reviews > Race Matters

Full disclosure: I don’t come to Race Matters from an insightful and enlightened place. I was raised in an all-white town (infamous for the 1907 lynching of James Garden) by all-white parents who used the N-word on a daily basis without the slightest hint of reservation or remorse.

In spite of my upbringing, I never embraced the warped rationale that links animosity and antipathy with skin pigmentation. That’s not to say I didn’t have a lot to unlearn. I was indoctrinated and “diversity deprived” until I graduated high school in 1980. At seventeen I had rarely been in close proximity, much less in conversation, with a black human being. As a result I said and did all those stupid white people things none of us should ever say or do. NOTE: to seaman recruit Grooms, navy bootcamp 1980 - if you’re out there man, thank you for not punching me in the face every time I touched your hair. I am so sorry.

So here I am, 57 years into a life that started out on the wrong side of history. I am hopefully a little wiser (still a work in progress) and now looking to Dr. Cornel West for, if not answers, at least the right questions...

“no democracy can survive, no matter how strong its markets are, without a serious public life and commitment to fairness and justice” ~Dr Cornel West, 2001

My preconceptions of Race Matters were pretty far off the mark. For one thing, Dr West is almost as critical of the political left as he is of the political right... almost. For another, he doesn’t pull any punches when it comes to the shortcomings of past and present black leadership. There are no disingenuous allegiances or sacred cows here. Be you Jesse Jackson or Booker T. Washington, Cornel West is going to hold you accountable.

West sees U.S. political machinery operating in two camps: 1) “Liberal Structuralism” - promoting childcare programs, full employment, access to healthcare, and broad affirmative action practices, and 2) “Conservative Behavioralism” - promoting black business expansion, self-help incentives, and non-preferential job practices. Both camps come with their own set of problems and both, West insists, fail to grapple with the central issue of American racial disparity: cultural nihilism.

“Nihilism is to be understood here not as a philosophic doctrine that there are no rational grounds for legitimate standards or authority; it is, far more, the lived experience of coping with a life of horrifying meaninglessness, hopelessness, and (most important) lovelessness.”

This nihilism, West maintains, is manifested as a collective angst brought about by immersion in a culture of white supremacy that degrades and devalues black worth, black intelligence, black ability and black character.

“...we must delve into the depths where neither liberals nor conservatives dare to tread, namely, into the murky waters of despair and dread that now flood the streets of black America ...The liberal/conservative discussion conceals the most basic issue now facing black America: the nihilistic threat to its very existence.”

Think about this for a second - this is Cornel West speaking to us from 1993. He talks about the pitfalls of racial reasoning - ‘still a problem. He talks about the crisis of black leadership - ‘still a problem. He talks about the phenomenon of black conservatism - ‘inherently problematic. He talks about the skewed distribution of wealth - ‘an exponentially bigger problem now than it was in 1993. Black sexuality, black rage, black antisemitism—all of this could be easily gleaned from the headlines here in 2020. None of this shit is resolved, none of this shit has subsided, most of this shit has escalated.

“Malcolm X’s deep pessimism about the capacity and possibility of white America to shed their racism led him, ironically, to downplay the past and present bonds between blacks and whites. For if the two groups were, as Martin Luther King Jr. put it, locked into “one garment of destiny,” then the very chances for black freedom were nil. This deep pessimism also rendered Malcolm X ambivalent about American democracy - for if the majority were racist how could the black minority ever be free?”

History has shown, I believe, that Malcolm’s concerns were completely justified.

If you think I’m being overly pessimistic, consider this: David Duke, a white supremacist, convicted felon, former KKK Grand Wizard, neo-nazi Holocaust denier, got 55% of the white vote and 69% of the white “evangelical christian” vote when he was elected to the Louisiana House of Representatives.

“We are at a crucial crossroad in the history of this nation - and we either hang together by combating these forces that divide and degrade us or we hang separately. Do we have the intelligence, humor, imagination, courage, tolerance, love, respect, and will to meet the challenge? Time will tell. None of us alone can save the nation or world. But each of us can make a positive difference if we commit ourselves to do so.” ~Cornel West, Princeton, 1994