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Home > Fall Forum > 2000
Cornel West's Opening Remarks
Fall Forum 2000
 Let
me first say that I would like to thank my new friend and sister and the captain
of this mighty ship, Hudi Podolsky for her vision and her determination to hold
together this very, very precious Coalition of Essential Schools. Let's give her
a hand actually; she works so very hard. And also my dear brother, Theodore R.
Sizer. What can I say? I recall thirty years ago your books on the shelves of
my mother who was herself a first grade teacher and a principal and who just recently
had an elementary school named after her, in Elk Grove Elementary School District
in Sacramento, California, Irene Bias West. And so seeing him in the flesh as
a long distance runner, not just for Essential Education but high quality education,
I pay tribute to you. It's a blessing to meet you. Let's give Brother Theodore
a hand as well.
I salute each and every one of you who are laborers in the vineyard of Essential
Education. I must say I've been wrestling with a roller coaster-like set of feelings
in light of what's going on in Florida. But I was deeply, deeply inspired when
Brown University decided to choose Dr. Ruth Simmons as the new president of Brown
University here in Providence, Rhode Island. She's one of the finest college presidents.
She is a woman of unbelievable talent, creativity, critical intelligence, courage,
determination. Many of you know her work going back to USC, and Princeton. Of
course - she was the associate provost who brought together Toni Morrison, Arnold
Rampersad, and a host of others including myself to constitute an Afro-American
Studies department at Princeton, and then Smith College was wise enough to tease
her away from Princeton, New Jersey. And now the fact that my dear Ruth Simmons,
a black sister from the ghetto of Houston, is president of an Ivy League institution.
When I see her I'll tell her it must be that Baptist connection I guess, that
will help facilitate that kind of work. And we'll all push for her because in
so many ways, who and what she is, is an embodiment of what Essential Education
is all about.
I hope that I say something this evening that unsettles you, unnerves you,
maybe even for a moment, "unhouses" you. Very much like the experience
that we want with each and every one of our students for them to recognize that,
if only for a second, their worldview rests on pudding. That kind of existential
vertigo, that tragic qualm that goes hand in hand with the best kind of education.
Socrates says that "the unexamined life is not worth living," and Malcolm X
adds that "the examined life is painful". And it seems to me that any serious
discussion about education, especially this rich tradition of Essential Education,
begins in many ways with Socrates, though he's not the only starting point, but
he's such an appropriate starting point. Because he enacts as well as embodies
what the great California-born philosopher, Josiah Royce, called the "spirituality
of genuine doubting". By spirituality he does not mean anything ephemeral.
I know we associate California with "new age" spirituality, but that's
not what Josiah had in mind. He had in mind self-involved and self- invested wrestling
with, grappling with, visions, perspectives, arguments, wrestling with oneself,
mustering the courage to learn.
William Butler Yeats is right when he said that "it takes more courage to dig
deep into the abyss of one's own soul that it takes for a soldier to fight on
the battlefield". And if we can't forge a courage in ourselves as teachers and
attempt make it contagious with our students, then our learning still remains
too hollow, too shallow, too quantitative, too standard-oriented rather than existential
and intellectual in the best sense of those words.
I find Socrates one of the most fascinating figures and at the same time, given
the fact that Socrates never wrote a word (he was too busy asking questions) were
it not for Plato, Xenophon, and Aristophanes, we would not have access to this
particular agent in human history. And when we examine those texts closely, even
given the fascinating character of Socrates' deep suspicion of all forms of dogmatism,
fixity, orthodoxy. . . trying to ensure that we never present views that become
so ossified, and petrified, and frozen that we are not self critical and self-corrective.
. . what is interesting about Socrates is that we rarely, if ever, see Socrates
crying. Leo Strauss and others have argued of course that Socrates actually lacks
Eros. He seduces in an ingenious way as with Alcibiades. But he never cries. I've
always believed that one who's moving from womb to tomb who never cries has never
really loved. And if one has never loved, I'm not convinced that one has really
lived. So the Socratic spirit, as rich and indispensable as it is, is a necessary,
not sufficient condition for Essential, high-quality education.
So I submit that one has to bring together the Socratic-lingus, the dialogue
of Athens, one of its golden moments with the tears, sobs, screams of Jerusalem,
Elijah, Jeremiah, Jesus of Nazarus. They weep. And why do they weep? They weep
because of their profound compassion, dare I say love, their deep sense of empathy:
empathy being understood as the exercise of will and imagination that tries to
convince us to conceive of what it's like to be in the shoes of other people,
to walk a mile in other people's feet. And it's that compassion, spirituality
of genuine giving, serving, sacrificing that one does not see as one ought in
Socrates or in that moment in Athens, that we're after.
Like my dear friend, and sister, and comrade, Deborah Meier, who I think is
one of the towering figures of American education, who recognizes that we have
to talk about democratic tradition and the role of institutions of education vis-a-vis
that tradition, I'm thoroughly convinced that the Socratic pillar and Jerusalem-like
pillar constitute two fundamental foundations for any serious discussions about
Essential, high quality, democratic education. I know that word "democratic"
has been so tame and domesticated but we need to release its wildness. Bring back
a Whitmanite spirit, the wild man, the Youts and the Hows, as part and parcel
of the self-critical and self-corrective spirit of Athens on the one hand, and
the very, very deep sense of connecting with others.
Now I submit to you tonight - because I don't have a lot of time, and I'm used
to speaking an hour and a half, and I promised my dear sister Hudi that I would
be disciplined tonight - but I submit one fundamental paradigm to use is to dig
deep into the history of people of African descent in the modern world and examine
the various forms of spirituality of seeking, questioning, doubting. Especially
that fundamental dogma of so much of American history, that of white supremacy.
And how that spirit links itself to other dogmas of male supremacy, heterosexual
supremacy, vast economic inequality, idols of the market, wealth inequality .
. . uncontested, unexamined, uninterrogated, viewed as a natural given that constitutes
the framework wherein we think about ourselves . . . , think about education,
think about our society.
And so I want to invoke, just very briefly, jazz as a model for democratic
education. Jazz of course is continuous with spirituals and blues. But reminding
us of the Negro National Anthem which says what? "Lift every Voice".
What a democratic sensibility. Lack of democracy: voicelessness. Democratic reality:
a sense of being an agent in the world, taking control and ownership over one's
sense of one's body, one's views, one's perspectives, one's arguments. Affirming
that Emersonian formulation that all forms of imitation are suicide. It's a matter
of finding one's own distinctive voice, one's own precious individuality that
is not reduced to rugged, rapacious, ragged individualism. But rather is constituted
by bouncing up against other voices within a community just like a jazz quartet,
where if you haven't found your distinctive voice, it's time for you to practice
more.
And that collective performance of those distinctive voices rooted in what?
Indescribable technique, discipline, energy. But also what? A sense of the comic,
a sense of humor, willing to laugh at oneself knowing that one will never be complete,
never be finished, always more to do, always ascending to higher levels of excellence.
And John Coltrane's "A Love Supreme" constitutes one particular example
of this paradigm of jazz, which constitutes one of the means by which we understand
what is required if we take seriously democratic education.
"A Love Supreme:" spirituality, questioning, seeking, interrogating,
oneself, society, and world, but also so much compassion flowing with its blues
component, which the great Lorraine Hansberry defined as "a sad and strange
indictment of misery." Which means that all forms of serious education have
to do with wrestling with forms of evil, with unjustified suffering, and unnecessary
social misery. It has to do with dealing with the "night side" of the
human predicament, and the dark side of whatever society one finds oneself. And
that is why the blues sensibility has never been confined to any particular people
with skin pigmentation.
Melville had the blues. Moby Dick, whiteness of the whale, morally white,
visually white. In what? A society that evolved at the time of 1851 around whiteness
as a badge of superiority in which one invested one's identity that made it difficult
to allow for a democratic identity to emerge. Leading toward Civil War and the
possible death of American Democracy. Mark Twain had the blues. One of the more
profound moral novelistic efforts. Dealing with what? What it means to be human.
And as brother Sizer said, we are involved in humanistic studies, but we need
to be reminded that our English word "human" derives from the Latin
"humando", which means "burying". We have to deal with forms
of death; social death, like slavery; civil death, like women not being able to
vote until 1920; psychic death, like young kids not believing that they even have
the capacity to learn; spiritual death, giving up on any source of hope, any possibility
that the future can be better. Seneca says he or she who learns how to die unlearns
slavery, various forms of slavery.
And in our present moment, it seems to me, that the major danger is our slavish
captivity to the reigning idol, fetish of our day, the market, capital "M". Now
I separate market capital "M" with market small "m", because I feel that market
small "m" is inescapable, with heterogeneous mass populations, who deal with the
challenge of supply and demand and price mechanisms. But market capital "M", is
an idol, it's an idol, and when we look at young people these days, we see a generation
that has been disproportionately shaped by the idolization of the market. Buying,
selling, promoting, advertising, with its market mentalities. Gaining immediate
access to pleasure, now! Immediate access to property, now! Immediate access to
power, now! And the non-market values, activities of critical consciousness, historical
consciousness, held at arm's length.
There can be no substantive Essential Education without accenting non-market
values, activities that allow us to situate ourselves, and our young people, our
students, in stories bigger than us. That allow us to locate ourselves in narratives
grander than us, that go beyond the activity of buying and selling and promoting
and advertising. So many of us take for granted those institutions that shaped
and mold us, like the ultimate non-market activity in American life, which is
parenting. And the connection between school, family, community, mosque, synagogue,
temple, church. A strong civil society in place that allowed for the schools to
be stronger and thereby seize our imaginations and get us out of ourselves and
connect us with traditions, democratic traditions, at their best.
And the clash these days between democratic identity and market identity, or
democratic citizenship and consumer citizenship sits at the center of so much
of our battle over how we educate our young people. Why? Because television educates,
poverty educates, schools at their best go beyond just dispensing skills, they
educate. And this contestation, this struggle, this conflict, is one which is
without countervailing forces against the dominant forces in our society and world
market forces.
We more and more find young people thoroughly seduced by market mentalities
and market moralities. And I must say very sadly that, the ultimate logic, of
a thorough-going market culture with feeble non-market countervailing forces is
a "gangsterized" society. And by "gangsterized" society, I
mean, in part, becoming obsessed with the 11th commandment: "Thou shall not
get caught." And when I hear that 71% of our young people in high schools
report that they cheat regularly. I don't have to be conservative like my fellow
citizen Brother William Bennett to be deeply upset about that.
Because no democracy can survive based on people believing that they win by
any means. And the market models that American education, more and more shaped
by corporatization, not just in terms of resources but the very way which we conceive
of ourselves as humans as teachers and students, is frightening, deeply frightening.
It's not just a matter of survival and educational institutions having some stability.
It has to do with what is their content and substance.
Is it possible to produce active citizens in a democratic republic without
a sense of history, without some non-market values like courage and trust and
sacrifice for something bigger than oneself beyond simply even the flag, but the
human family as the backdrop against which one understands oneself? I'm saying,
in part, that the Coalition of Essential Schools is wrestling with issues that
have everything to do with the future of American democracy and the prospects
of the American republic.
The great John Dewey, who was not only a great pedagogue but also a towering
philosopher, in his 1927 classic, The Public and Its Problems, said "Show
me a democracy, show me a democracy that devalues the public, devalues the non-market
realities that transcend the privatistic, hedonistic, materialistic proclivities
that the market often, though not always, but often reinforces, show me a democracy
that downplays the public, thereby downplays public education, public conversation,
public health, public transportation and I'll show you a democracy in deep decay
and decline, beneath the meretricious glitter and superficial surfaces of its
grand economic performance."
That's 1927, you say my God, Mr. Dewey, we know that you were prophetic but
have you become reincarnated in the year 2000? Of course John Dewey didn't add
that part of the problem was that, to the degree that bodies of color are associated
with the public, and those bodies have been degraded, dishonored, so that public
education has been associated with black and brown students, public transportation
associated with subways where disproportionately black and brown bodies are transported.
This means again that that specter of race still haunts our democracy and our
public life. And to think that somehow we can escape, somehow we can flee, becomes
itself another form of denial, another form of evasion. Of what? The very realities
that constitute the raw stuff against which all democracies are created. Which
is what? Ensuring that arbitrary forms of power are not deployed or used against
fellow citizens and fellow human beings. And perennially raising the question
in our understanding of ourselves, and our schools and in our institutions, of
what is the relation between public interest and common good and the most vulnerable
among us.
And I must say, that in the recent election, I was not deeply encouraged. There
was some interesting formulations from fellow citizen George W. Bush and fellow
citizen Al Gore regarding education. But it was so surface-like, given the depths
of the crisis as I understand it Especially for working people, especially for
poor people, and of course, working people and poor people were hardly invoked
in the campaign. There was a little talk about working families but working people
and poor people, my God, we had to lean over . . . just say something about the
poor. They are here, you know. More than one out of six of our labor force is
working poor, work more than forty hours a week, do not receive one penny from
the federal government, still live in poverty, increasing. 20% of our children
living in poverty. 42% of our black and brown children living in poverty.
In fact, I was just talking to one of the black leaders recently. He was very
upset about my support of Nader, but we won't go into that right now, it's not
the most popular thing to do as you can imagine, right now. We've had death threats
in San Francisco already at Nader headquarters because of it. Fellow Democrats,
capital "D", but that is interesting. Not too democratic of them, small "d", but
people get upset, human beings are human beings. I'd raise a question, I said,
my God, it is interesting to see these black leaders so preoccupied with their
favorite candidate but he can't mention the word "poor". But 42% of
the black children are poor. Which means how do you talk about the education opportunities,
the existential potentialities of 42% of your children, when you candidates won't
even mention the term that designates their situation in plight? Not as victims
but as victimized agents who can learn, who can resist, but against overwhelming
odds.
The reply was: Brother West, don't you realize that you are an idealist and
you are a professor and I am a politician and centrism is the word. I said you
are right, I am not a politician, I am a fellow citizen but I am deeply political.
And if you think that somehow we can escape the necessary truth-telling in regard
to the crisis of American education, especially as it relates to chocolate cities,
urban areas, disproportionately black and brown. Then, as Malcolm X suggested,
the chickens will come home to roost, and don't you ever think that there will
ever be enough police or prisons to deal with the overwhelming social despair
that results from the social neglect in those kindergartens, elementary schools,
and secondary schools and high schools.
Now I know that the prison population has doubled in the last six years, and
there are more black prisoners today than there were all prisoners in 1994. And
the market-driven prison industry is growing exponentially, but that still is
not a democratic solution. The same is true in terms of the wealth inequality.
I do not believe that education is based solely on resources. Resources again,
are necessary, not sufficient conditions for Essential Education. Creative thinking,
critical intelligence, deep commitment, connection with students, believing deeply
that students can learn. But at the same time, without a serious discussion about
the wealth inequality in the country, we are fighting against the wind. And that
wind is like a whirlwind, a hurricane . . . 1% of the population having roughly
the same wealth as the bottom 95% of the population.
Mr. Clinton said just yesterday on the radio, he said the strong economic performance
has turned things around. I say yes, the economic performance has been quite impressive,
but when you entered office, the top 1% owned 33%, they now own 48%. How much
wealth inequality can a body politic take before it snaps, with the implications:
family, education, courts, across the board? One individual has wealth equivalent
to 120 million fellow citizens. Brother Bill Gates is a very decent person, I've
never met him, I am deeply impressed by his philanthropy. It is a rich tradition
in America, philanthropy. But charity is not justice.
How long can that galloping, escalating wealth inequality continue against
the backdrop of hard-working fellow citizens like yourselves, trying to cut against
the grain, with decreasing resources relative to defense budgets, relative to
corporate warfare, relative to tax abatements, giveaways for the powerful. This
is not a matter of cheap PC ideology, it's a matter of raising questions in a
robust and uninhibited democratic discourse, questions that are usually not asked.
That's what it means, the pursuit of Socratic spirit. When will America raise
the question of wealth inequality in relation to education?
Now of course, I teach at Harvard University, one of the grand institutions
of the ruling elite. And to the degree to which I can no longer tell the truth
is the degree I've sold my soul for a mess of pottage. And to the degree I can
create space and be part of a democratic discourse that is self-critical enough
to listen but self-confident to articulate my democratic vision, then even Harvard
can be a site for prophetic and progressive reflection about education and the
economy and a whole host of other issues.
I submit to you tonight, very much like the blues sensibility that I invoked
earlier, I am not optimistic. Anyone who has the audacity to adopt a democratic
vision cannot be optimistic, though I do not conflate optimism with hope. Why?
Because democracies are rare in human history, they are fragile, and historically
they tend not to last that long. Oligarchic, plutocratic, pigmentocratic, patriarchal
forces suffocate so easily democratic forces. And America has been so privileged
because there has always been a prophetic slice across race, region, and class,
and gender, and sexual orientation, a progressive slice that says we are not going
to give up on this fragile democratic project, it is incomplete and unfinished,
but we are not going to give up on it, even against the grain of so much of human
history.
In 1940, they said "we are going to fight fascism", the generation
that Brother Tom Brokaw is so excited about, rightly so. Three fragile democracies
in the world. No time to engage in discussions about democratic education, we've
got to fight for the conditions for the very possibility of democracy in the face
of Hitler, and Mussolini, and Franco, and Japanese materialistic imperial elites.
In the 1960's, and so many of you are veterans of this struggle, if we don't break
the back of American apartheid, we will be at each other's throats, there will
be a civil war. We already recognize it in 369 rebellions and 259 cities between
1964 and 1969. One night 213 uprisings when the bullets went through the precious
body of Martin Luther King Jr. That's not just non-violent activity, we were on
the brink of collapse. We forget about that.
But enough fellow citizens came forward and said, look, I think we really do
have a problem here. We've been subordinating these folk for so long, we enslaved
them for 244 years, we "Jim Crowed" them for 81 years, for every 2 days for 51
years one of them was lynched from a tree in the South. Maybe we have a problem.
Maybe we ought to really try to take seriously multiracial democracy. Which we
know was not the division of the founding fathers, even given their relative wisdom.
They could not conceive of black, white, red, yellow, all having equal citizenship
status. They could not conceive of women having equal citizenship status. And
one says that not to trash them just to contextualize them. They had wisdom but
it is relative to context, just as we have wisdom today but it is relative to
our context.
But we are building on their vision. And in the year of 2000, I believe that
if we do not wrestle with precisely what you all are trying to do, namely raise
the issue of Essential equality in relation to quality family, community, civil
society, and its relation to the economy with its overwhelming inequality and
increasing inequality, then yes, we can begin to lose that precious democratic
tradition that was transmitted, bequeathed to us by the best of those who came
before.
So I end not on an optimistic note, but on a note of hope. Because hope is
blues-like. The blues are in no way sentimental, certainly not optimistic. "I've
been down so long that down don't worry me no more." That's not all-American
optimism but it's deeply American. But it is looking at it through the lens of
those who have been through the fire of the "night side" of American
life. And it's open to all who are willing to view themselves in America through
that lens.
That hope also means that one keeps keeping on, that one is willing to come
together and constitute coalitions, communities, schools, that exemplify what
we talk about, that embody democratic principles, that somehow keep a light shining,
a democratic light shining in such a dark world. And who knows, history is open-ended.
I believe that we do have a chance. But we never know. It depends on the quality
of our relations, it depends on the quality of our commitment, it depends on the
quality of our courage and vision. If we're serious about keeping alive the democratic
tradition, then we have a chance.
As T.S. Eliot reminds us in his famous essay of 1919 Tradition and the Individual
Talent, tradition is not something you inherit. If you want it you must obtain
it with deep labor. You've got to fight for it. And I simply say, for those, all
of you who've come here to fight for this democratic tradition, I am very blessed
to be here with you, because like you I am going down fighting. Thank you very
much.
Discussion
Race Matters
Cornel West
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