Joseph Conrad’s Heart of Darkness is my second favorite book. Though its macro theme centers around the notion of imperialism, its premise looks into the heart of man. And by that very meaning, one can conclude that the heart of man is evil. The work is filled with imagery, symbolism, and at times, a convoluted writing style that ask the reader to analyze different themes.
Here are a few general thoughts from a faculty read perspective. I am with Houston Christian’s librarian Mia Steinkamp:
Filed under About Carson, Books, History
I am frequently asked, “Carson how do you prepare for class?” I respond by saying, I read. And I read a lot. As you can see, I am still expanding my knowledge and understanding of the classical notion of “class conflict.”
A colleague and a dear friend who teaches English in the cold state of New Hampshire, invited me into her class as a guest speaker recently. As she noted on her blog:
Carson Skyped into my classroom again this morning. I invited him to come and give some background and context about Jim Crow and segregation to my freshmen as they read To Kill a Mockingbird…. I recognized that a big missing piece for my students and To Kill a Mockingbird was likely the aspect of culture; as mostly white, mostly affluent, mostly liberal Northerners, most of us have never really had to consider the legacy of segregation and racism in our everyday lives, and I think that understanding those things is crucial to really appreciating the gravity and importance of this novel. Carson did a great job of laying the groundwork for the students’ understanding of the CULTURE of the country – not just the South, but the whole of the US – from Reconstruction on, and I think they left the class feeling like they understood a little better the way that culture informs the characters in Lee’s book….I could probably have done a decent job covering the material that Carson taught my kids this morning, but I was particularly grateful that he was willing to get up early (we’re a time zone ahead of him) and beam himself into my classroom. I think that it’s important for my students to hear a lot of different voices. I admire Carson’s knowledge and adore his style, and I’m grateful and honored that he agrees to share his time and talent so freely with me.
I am always honored when others, but especially highly intelligent and dynamic individuals such as Mrs. Chili, invite me to participate in a class discussion. In truth, and like so many of us my age who are not teaching this work, I have not read this book since 8th grade; however, because it is such a profound work of literature, it is one that few forget. Yet, one individual took a punch not only at Mrs. Chilli and other English teachers who teach this novel, but at the significance of Black History Month. Of course, I am sure you are wondering how one created such a juxtaposition. Well, this person “named” Cal writes:
You’re kidding, right? TKAM was written for white suburban northerners; it was largely designed to make them feel good about themselves. The book simultaneously explained southern whites in a self-serving manner while reassuring northern whites that goodness, they were so much better than the average small town southerner–and certainly good enough to appreciate Atticus Finch.
There are all sorts of reasons why your class doesn’t appreciate the book, but it’s not because they aren’t white southerners.
As for them not appreciating the legacy of segregation and racism; good lord, they’ve had it preached to them every February for nine years. They get it. They just don’t like the book much. Oh, well.
I think it would help if English teachers didn’t treat it like a religious text to be worshipped.
I felt both a moral and academic obligation to respond to Cal’s comment. Thus, in return, I stated that his point is interesting but highly flawed in its analysis. Let us start with black history month — or as he called it, preachy February. In a world that sees and adheres to the greatness of whiteness, blacks have had to embrace a “sense” of societal servitude in relation to the notion of second class; I am not talking about Jim Crow here; I am talking about the element of not being relevant in a white mainstream society. Thus, black folks created specialized literature to showcase why black is not heathen, but significant. Magazines such as Jet, Essence, and Ebony demonstrate that there is a community making progress and one that has achieved much — even in a world that still view the plight of black folks as ghetto. Sure, Cal can deny this — but in the end, he and others subscribe to this thought, too.
Seeing that many white folks are not reading the literature of black folks above, blacks found ways to break into the mainstream TV viewership. Shows like the Cosby Show told whites to back off. Stop typecasting a race due to perception. Blacks are educated and have a sense of moral value. February offers some attention to explaining black suffering, which often accompanies a corresponding emphasis on black redemption via a sense of being Afrocentric.
I have yet to meet an English instructor that used this work as the gospel. That is usually reserved for William Shakespeare. But, Cal clearly missed the point. The work teaches us about love, compassion, courage, and a sense of morality. Atticus Finch, the protagonist in the book, was a lawyer teaching folks in the deep South how to be and act human. He put his life on the line for honor, knowing that most people in Alabama might want him lynched. He represented the fact that there were good white people in Alabama. Many suspect that he represents Harper Lee’s father, a man she looked to for moral guidance in a world missing it.
It is a work about competition between white men and black men. Seeing that white male heterosexuals hold power, white men felt threatened by black men, especially sexually. Thus, they created the idea that black men were animals looking to rape white women. Hence, the white race cannot survive if such predators are allowed to compete for this resource…a white female. Cal, you missed the boat.
Here is Mrs. Chili’s response. She discusses the geographical point, which I failed to do:
I think it is absolutely reasonable to think that my students’ being mostly white, mostly affluent, and mostly Northern DOES have an effect on their ability to really appreciate the concepts that TKaM is asking us to consider. When one is not presented with a thing, one doesn’t have to really think about it. I am not ever in a situation where I have to worry about where my next meal is coming from, for example, so I never have to think about being hungry in any meaningful sense. When we’re healthy, we do not consider the workings of our bodies; when our cars are working properly, we never think about all the things that have to happen to get us from one place to another. It’s only when something is amiss that we start to think about how – and whether – things are working. That my students don’t have a baseline for experience with issues of race and race relations IS significant – if one has no experience with something, one cannot be expected to understand it without guidance and education.
I disagree with your claim that the novel was written to make white Northerners “feel better.” On what, exactly, are you basing that assertion? My own experience with this novel would tell me that it was likely more intended for the white Southern reader, actually; it seems pretty clear to me that the novel’s purpose is to inspire some self-critical thinking on the part of people who might share some beliefs and assumptions with the people of Macomb – that’s certainly the effect it had on ME, and it’s that thinking that I try to inspire in my students.
Carson said everything I could have about Black History Month. I don’t think you’re correct in thinking that the students have been indoctrinated or preached to; in fact, I invited Carson into my classroom specifically BECAUSE my students didn’t know what Jim Crow laws were. It’s a mistake to assume that people know things they may not know.
Finally, I’m offended by your implication that I ‘worship’ this novel – or any novel, for that matter. I see these texts as touchstones – guides by which I can lead myself and my students through a more rich, diverse, and complex way of thinking. Everything is up for discussion; nothing is sacred, and I resent your implication that I – or anyone else – hold any of these books above scrutiny. To do that is antithetical to everything that every good teacher does.
Cal, you really DID miss the boat.
Filed under Black History, Books, Courses, Racism, Teaching
I have already placed my order for this work; I am thinking that once I get started on it, I will periodically post questions and thoughts regarding race, faith, and class in America here at The Professor. I am set to start reading this work. If you are interested, I am thinking about organizing a scheduled discussion via The Professor. Email me or leave a comment regarding your interest. You can order it here.
Here is a summary:
Both religion and race have played important — and sometimes deeply interconnected — roles in American history. Religion was used to justify both slavery and abolition; likewise it was used to justify both segregation and desegregation. Today even conservative Christians support equality between the races, but that doesn’t mean that everything is settled or peaceful. In truth, evangelical Christianity continues to reinforce racial divides.
I think I have selected an array of intriguing works as “required readings” for my new Contemporary American Studies seminar course next fall; in truth, I have been working on this course, its syllabus and outline, as well as the required readings for years now. The challenge was limiting the scope of books I want us to read. I have decided to put together a “course pack” which is comprised of a diverse set of primary and secondary articles to read, alone with the following three books:
The first is a great read linking race and black nationalism as a historical phenomena to the rise of hip hop and rap music. From Black Power to Hip Hop asks students to take on a more critical position regarding the music they listen to and the forces regarding economics that have shaped the modern paradigm called America. This review stated:
Despite legislation designed to eliminate unfair racial practices, the United States continues to struggle with a race problem. Some thinkers label this a “new” racism and call for new political responses to it. Using the experiences of African-American women and men as a touchstone for analysis, Patricia Hill Collins examines new forms of racism as well as political responses to it.
In this incisive and stimulating book, renowned social theorist Patricia Hill Collins investigates how nationalism has operated and re-emerged in the wake of contemporary globalization and offers an interpretation of how black nationalism works today in the wake of changing black youth identity. Hers is the first study to analyze the interplay of racism, nationalism, and feminism in the context of twenty-first century black America.
From Black Power to Hip Hop covers a wide range of topics including the significance of race and ethnicity to the American national identity; how ideas about motherhood affect population policies; African-American use of black nationalism ideologies as anti-racist practice; and the relationship between black nationalism, feminism, and women in the hip-hop generation.
The second work above looks at the Simpson’s and how the popular TV show has had a huge impact on contemporary history. I think the most interesting thing about this work is that it allows both historians and students to assess the functionality of culture, especially when it comes to defining the traditional family and knowledge. As one reviewer of this work noted:
In exploring the thought of key philosophers including Aristotle, Marx, Camus, Sartre, Heidegger, and Kant through episode plots and the characters’ antics, the contributors tackle issues like irony and the meaning of life, American anti-intellectualism, and existential rebellion. The volume also includes an episode guide and a chronology of philosophers which lists the names and dates of the major thinkers in the history of philosophy, accompanied by a representative quote from each.
And the last work above is one I most recently read: American Jesus: How the Son of God became an American Icon. This work will push students into thinking about how different groups see and define Jesus. Moreover, it will ask students to look at how Jesus has become exploited by various groups with different agendas. A review of this work stated:
Jesus appears to be alive and well in America. Many people seek to discover the “historical” Jesus who gave rise to the Christian religion, but at least as interesting is the “cultural” Jesus which has given rise to all sorts of modern religious movements, political developments, and cultural progress. Jesus is an important figure in the Christianity of every nation, but he appears to be far more significant in America. Why?
My friend over at the Anxiety of Influence blog recently wrote a piece addressing the Trouble with Amazon. Moreover, he went on to state:
Admittedly, I buy almost all of my books from Amazon.com. Their low prices combined with quick shipping, great review features, and their handy Wish List make book shopping from my desk easy, fast, and–most importantly for me–reasonably affordable. Rarely, unless it’s the new DeLillo novel, will I buy a book new. For the most part, good quality used books can be purchased through Amazon’s site from other vendors that also benefit from Amazon’s ubiquity in the book market. With that, I border-line covet the Kindle (but I’m resisting for now) and am curious what the company will unveil next.
Above: Books from Amazon (not all) at home and on campus
I too like Amazon; however, only if I know exactly what work(s) I am looking to study. Specialty books of an academic nature are best here. But, if I am in the mood to peruse or purchase mainstream books, then I seek to visit book stores. Yesterday I shopped Amazon for a few works to add to my library.
My friend Phil suggested Glenda Gilmore’s Defying Dixie, which I found of interest from this review:
#1
Two characters in her narrative particularly stand out. The first is Lovett Fort-Whiteman, a Dallas-born graduate of Tuskegee Institute who was one of the first blacks recruited into the American Communist Party. Dispatched soon afterward to Moscow as part of an official delegation, he lectured about race discrimination in the United States to an audience that included Joseph Stalin. In the style of many radicals of the era, he became a thorough Russophile: in Gilmore’s marvelous account, he walks down a street in a black neighborhood in Chicago greeting friends shortly after his return from his pilgrimage to Moscow, sporting a robochka — a Russian peasant blouse — as well as “knee-high felt boots and a small mustache.” Fort-Whiteman was instrumental in pushing American Communists to broaden their concept of class struggle to include the fight against racism. In the 1930s he moved permanently to Moscow, married a Russian woman and entertained black visitors who had come to see the vaunted Soviet experiment in action. Like many foreign Communists living in Moscow in that era, he ran afoul of the secret police, and died of starvation and mistreatment in a labor camp in 1939. (view the review here)
#2 Lift Every Voice: The NAACP and the Making of the Civil Rights Movement by Patricia Sullivan
Ten years in the making, Lift Every Voice is the first major history of America’s oldest civil rights organization and destined to be a classic in the field. Founded in 1909, the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) got its start as an elite organization dominated by white reformers at a time when segregation had triumphed in the South and the color line was tightening its hold in the North. By the end of World War I, the NAACP had become a mass-black membership organization reaching from Boston to Los Angeles and into the Mississippi Delta; after World War II, it had become synonymous with the freedom movement itself. Historian Patricia Sullivan unearths the little-known early decades of the NAACP’s activism, telling startling stories of personal bravery, legal brilliance, and political maneuvering by the likes of W.E.B. Du Bois, Mary White Ovington, Walter White, Charles Houston, Ella Baker, Thurgood Marshall, and Roy Wilkins. The book then moves into the critical postwar era, when, with a string of legal victories culminating in Brown v. Board, the NAACP knocked out the legal underpinnings of the segregation system and set the stage for the final assault on Jim Crow. An epic narrative of struggle against injustice, Lift Every Voice lays a new foundation for understanding the modern civil rights movement.
#3 Delaying the Dream: Southern States and the Fight against Civil Rights, 1938 – 1965 by Keith Finley
Recent years have witnessed a resurgence of academic interest in white southern opposition to the civil rights movement. Historians such as David Chappell, George Lewis, and Jeff Woods have enriched our understanding of what southern whites were and, just as significantly, were not able and willing to do to defend Jim Crow. Keith M. Finley adds a new dimension to this scholarship in his fine study of southern senators’ efforts to curtail federal civil rights legislation
#4 Hammer and Hoe by Robin D.G. Kelley (already read and own). See post on Black Communist for this review.
There is much to be said about one’s library. It is a place that holds our works of study, works to be studied, or books for mere pleasure. I am a big reader, though I must prioritize my reading. Case in point: I try to read a work that relates to the historical period that I am teaching. In my study I placed on the wall my Prefontaine picture; I think he is by far one of the greatest runners ever. Of course, the study can be a trap at times; it is easy to spend all of your time there. When I am ADD, all I have to do is turn the TV on to a news show or a sporting event.
It has been calling my name for a few weeks now; I have not read this work since high school, thus I am excited to re-read it in a more mature and evaluative way. I have grown in so many ways intellectually since high school; however, it was by my junior year that my intellectual cultivation had come to form. And, thanks to a number of folks that encouraged me to read complex works such as A Native Son by Richard Wright, my curiosity and mind continues to explode as I seek further knowledge on issues such as religion, race, and class. If you have read this work, I would love your thoughts.
Native Son is not an uplifting book with a happy Hollywood resolution. It has been criticized for its cardboard portrayal of black pathology and heavy-handed Marxist message. But the book is an absolutely gripping potboiler that is also intellectually provocative. It is on one level a seedy, simple story of an unsympathetic character meeting his fate at his own hands, and on another an illuminating drama of an individual consciousness that challenges traditional definitions of heroism, character, and integrity. Bigger Thomas was less a character caught in a specific criminal activity than he was a crime waiting to happen.
Filed under Books
I just got a new book to read today; yes, I need to finish writing and marking exams, but I think I will enjoy this recent book from my favorite scholar.
According to the publisher:
New York Times best-selling author Cornel West is one of America’s most provocative and admired public intellectuals. Whether in the classroom, the streets, the prisons, or the church, Dr. West’s uncluttered brilliance has been a bright beacon shining through the darkness for decades. Yet, as he points out in this new memoir, “I’ve never taken the time to focus on the inner dynamics of the dark precincts of my soul.”
That is, until now.
Brother West is like its Author – brilliant, unapologetic, passionate, compassionate, and cool. This poignant memoir traces West’s transformation from a schoolyard Robin Hood into a progressive cultural icon. From his youthful investigation of the “death shudder” to why he embraced his calling of teaching over preaching, from his three failed marriages to his near-fatal bout with prostate cancer, West illuminates what it means to live as “an aspiring bluesman in a world of ideas and a jazzman in the life of the mind.” Woven together with the fibers of his lifelong commitment to the prophetic Christian tradition that began in Sacramento’s Shiloh Baptist Church, Brother West is a tale of a man courageous enough to be fully human, living and loving out loud.
Filed under Books, Cornel West
Cushing Academy has all the hallmarks of a New England prep school, with one exception.
This year, after having amassed a collection of more than 20,000 books, officials at the pristine campus about 90 minutes west of Boston have decided the 144-year-old school no longer needs a traditional library. The academy’s administrators have decided to discard all their books and have given away half of what stocked their sprawling stacks – the classics, novels, poetry, biographies, tomes on every subject from the humanities to the sciences. The future, they believe, is digital.
“When I look at books, I see an outdated technology, like scrolls before books,’’ said James Tracy, headmaster of Cushing and chief promoter of the bookless campus. “This isn’t ‘Fahrenheit 451’ [the 1953 Ray Bradbury novel in which books are banned]. We’re not discouraging students from reading. We see this as a natural way to shape emerging trends and optimize technology.’’
Instead of a library, the academy is spending nearly $500,000 to create a “learning center,’’ though that is only one of the names in contention for the new space. In place of the stacks, they are spending $42,000 on three large flat-screen TVs that will project data from the Internet and $20,000 on special laptop-friendly study carrels. Where the reference desk was, they are building a $50,000 coffee shop that will include a $12,000 cappuccino machine.
Filed under Books, Independent Schools
I am ashamed to admit that I wasted ten bucks on this book on CD, but curiosity got the best of me. Ann Coulter is clearly the most pessimistic person in the media; she is not happy. According to her in The Church of Liberalism:
Liberals love to boast that they are not religious, which is what one would expect to hear from the state-sanctioned religion. Of course liberalism is a religion. It has its own cosmology, its own miracles, its own beliefs in the supernatural, its own churches, its own priests, its own saints, its own total worldview, and its explanation of the existence of the universe. In other words, liberalism contains all attributes of what is generally known as religion.
Funny, but I see liberals as those who manifest social, gender, economic, and racial progress; I think back to the 1960s when white liberals, black liberals, and Christian liberalism advocated for social equality. Her take on what defines a liberal and liberalism is very unclear to me. Moreover, I feel sorry for her cult followers who too are misguided in the rhetoric of ideology.
But through her long misguided rant, it was her chapter on education that bothered me the most; I will admit that I agreed with one or two points, but much of her rant was off target. Essentially she states that public school teachers are the high priests of liberalism. Democrats protect public school teachers at all cost. And if one speaks ill of a teacher, he or she is a heretic. Much of her argument(s) center(s) around teachers’ union, particularly the NEA. This organization allows a band of teachers to nurture students into a state of stupidity. Teachers are an overly glorified band that complain about being paid too little, when in actuality, they make more than a number of white-collar professionals that do not get holidays, summers, and snow days off. She goes on to state that teachers are responsible for 32,000 sexual abuse cases per year — making catholic priests look innocent.
Coulter asserts that teachers are always presumed heroes, and are spoken of in “reverential terms,” but are busy “inculcating students in the precepts of the Socialist Party of America—as understood by retarded people.” She cites Jay Bennish, the high school teacher caught on tape comparing Bush to Hitler and saying the U.S. is the “single most violent nation on planet Earth,” as evidence. She also lists a number of schools busy banning Christian faith references, while forcing students to participate in activities of other faiths. Coulter uses information from David Salisbury of the Center for Education Freedom at CATO Institute to illustrate the failure of public education. “Throughout the twentieth century, the scores of preschool age children on IQ and kindergarten readiness tests have climbed steadily upward….It’s not until they move up through grade school and on to high school that their performance declines.”
I do agree with Coulter in that too many public schools have too many administrators. She states that “over 80% of the faculty at private schools do indeed teach, only 50% of public school faculty members do such.” Thus, public schools are nothing more than a bureaucratic factory pumping out stupid kids. She argues that in American public schools, the longer one is in school… the dumber one becomes.
It is hard to believe that my college, Harding University, invited her to be a guest speaker. The only reason she did not make it is because too many students protested. Seeing the number of public school teachers Harding produces, I am assuming they did not read chapter six of this book. Good job Harding students.
Inside Higher Education, an academic news journal, noted:
“If one were to draw up a list of American colleges and universities to characterize as Ann Coulter country, Harding University would almost certainly be on it.” Ouch!!! The article, which can be read in its entirety here, also stated:
That view was echoed by Greg Kendall-Ball, a graduate divinity student at Abilene Christian University. He cited comments Coulter had made about countries that harbor terrorists — “We should invade their countries, kill their leaders and convert them to Christianity” — and about campus radicals: “When contemplating college liberals, you really regret once again that John Walker is not getting the death penalty. We need to execute people like John Walker in order to physically intimidate liberals, by making them realize that they can be killed, too. Otherwise, they will turn out to be outright traitors.”
In inviting Coulter to the campus, wrote Kendall-Ball, whose father and sisters are also Harding alums, the university had “failed to uphold the Christ-like spirit that Harding seeks to embody.” It troubled him, he said, that “someone advocating violence, forced conversions, physical intimidation and who has routinely expressed anti- or non-Christian views is welcomed and given one of the more prestigious speaking engagements on the school’s calendar.”Perhaps prodded by the bloggers, who saw visits to their sites shoot up from their standard levels in the last two weeks, alumni sent a slew of e-mails and letters urging Harding officials to reconsider.
And Tuesday, they did. In an e-mail message to faculty members, David Crouch, the director of public relations, said that the administration had “re-evaluated” its original decision to include Coulter in the 2005-6 lecture series, and replaced her with Jose Maria Aznar, Spain’s former president.
“Harding and Ann Coulter are probably on the same page on many issues,” Crouch said in an interview Wednesday. But he said that the alumni agitation — and seeing some of Coulter’s more outrageous comments, which he said “we did not know about” — had prompted “second thoughts” on the part of administrators. “We grew concerned with the manner in which she presents her ideas. We believe that some of her comments are very controversial and confrontational, and we just weren’t confortable with that.”
Yet in the days after Harding’s announcement, a small group of Harding alumni began voicing their discontent on their blogs. Mike Cope, a minister at Highland Church of Christ in Abilene, Tex., complained that Coulter lives in a “black/white ‘I’m-right-and-you’re-an-idiot’ world. If you don’t agree with her then you’re a bleeding heart liberal who doesn’t deserve to live here.” The problem, he said, was not that Coulter is conservative, but that her views are un-Christian.
Filed under blogs, Books, Conservatives, Education, Harding University, Religion, Stupid People
Above: Sam Mendazibal of Bolivia and the chairman of the Foreign Language Department chats with me after playing basketball with students during a recent campus retreat.
I received an email today from a group looking to organize a sub meeting on independent school campus diversity; one of the topics to be addressed is that of comfort at traditionally conservative affluent schools. I found it interesting that in the letter, it noted that a number of black faculty members tend to have attended private schools themselves, though many such as myself received a great deal of financial help from the school in order to attend. Because I have been active in this type of work over the course of ten years, I suspect my name was recommended either by an upper-school administrator or by a distant colleague that heard a conference presentation I gave on this subject.
Many minority faculty members and school administrators discuss the hiring of minority candidates in two terms: comfort and fit; however, both terms can mean different things to schools and minority faculty members. Houston Christian has a fair number (though not an astronomical) of minority teachers — which is great seeing that we are an upper school only. I have found that minority faculty members offer a different voice on matters of socioeconomic status, race, and perspective; still, the ideology of most on my campus is conservative — which is a bit unusual. Being a conservative faculty member, in my opinion, has nothing to do with faith. All HCHS faculty members are Christian. I find this piece of information below to be interesting as it relates to ideology and independent schools:
People of color, be they African American, Native American, Asian, Middle Eastern or whatever ethnic group, have spent years discovering their roots, developing a keen pride in their heritage, and accepting who they are. So don’t expect the current crop of prospective faculty to fit into your conservative profile. Many of them will not, and, frankly, I don’t think they should even try! Is that shocking? Is that unacceptable to you and your clientele? Then, perhaps, diversity is really not for you. If a turban or a dashiki pants suit offends, then so will diversity! Diversity by definition implies that the status quo will be upset.
The book Colors of Excellence is the leading authority on this topic. I have read it a number times. It is one that is always discussed at the annual People of Color Conference held by the National Association of Independent Schools. Moreover, it serves as a great comfort to many teachers of color with its countless anecdotes from other faculty members of color regarding their own experiences in independent schools. Regardless of what some might say, only those of a particular minority group can fully understand the social construction in existence that might or might not promote a level of comfort. I am looking forward to working with other teachers of color and addressing the continual challenges of diversity in the 21st century.
Visit the People of Color link here for more information on the annual meeting.
Filed under Black People, Books, Campus Life, Conservative Institutions, Diversity, Education, Independent Schools, Teaching
I constructed the above bulletin in the room that I teach in; I wanted to present to my students a list of works and authors that they might or might not know. This is clearly not an exhausted list. And, it represents authors often ignored by teachers. Black scholars have a very important case to represent when it comes to the history of America.
William Banks
A number of blacks have the job of being a part of the Talented Tenth (short excerpt):
The Negro race, like all races, is going to be saved by its exceptional men. The problem of education, then, among Negroes must first of all deal with the Talented Tenth; it is the problem of developing the Best of this race that they may guide the Mass away from the contamination and death of the Worst, in their own and other races. Now the training of men is a difficult and intricate task. Its technique is a matter for educational experts, but its object is for the vision of seers. If we make money the object of man-training, we shall develop money-makers but not necessarily men; if we make technical skill the object of education, we may possess artisans but not, in nature, men. Men we shall have only as we make manhood the object of the work of the schools � intelligence, broad sympathy, knowledge of the world that was and is, and of the relation of men to it � this is the curriculum of that Higher Education which must underlie true life. On this foundation we may build bread winning, skill of hand and quickness of brain, with never a fear lest the child and man mistake the means of living for the object of life.
I am currently reading Slavery by Another Name : The Re-Enslavement of Black Americans from the Civil War to World War II. The author, Douglas Blackmon, concludes that slavery really emerged after the Emancipation Proclamation. I addressed this some before in a piece on democracy and race when I stated this: In Karl Marx’s historical modes of production, he contends that neo-racism did not emerge until the rise of Atlantic labor systems. As the need and desire for more labor increased to help expand the capitalist’s notion of mercantilism, exploitation became the premise of enhancing one’s wealth. Before the rise of this paradigm, slavery had yet to be juxtaposed to racism. Ancient slavery was a product of group defeatism. Furthermore, issues of debt and family pride contributed to this institution. By the early middle ages, slavery in Europe and aspects of Asia took on a more feudal identity. I teach that the term “racism” was transformed at the same point that the term “slavery” was transformed via the 16th century Atlantic market. The Atlantic market gave rise to a newly created North American state that used racial exploitation as a labor base to develop its economic market. I do realize that this attitude was one of region and geography; regardless, it fostered an American identity linked to capitalism, slavery, and racism. Funny, but the very nature of slavery was anti-climatic to the term free-market capitalism.
Today, racism is more covert; it is found in the urban centers of America where the impact of ghettoization due to Jim Crowism have institutionalized a cycle of vice, poverty, and poor education…. This is an element of neo-racism addressed in Blackmon’s book and one that I have stated, too. Much of this institution, just like that of the Atlantic market’s formation of an American democracy, has been derived from exploitation. Thanks to the growth of the federal government, blacks have been able to use devices such as affirmative action to elevate themselves to middle class status.
In this review of the work…
In “Slavery by Another Name” Douglas A. Blackmon eviscerates one of our schoolchildren’s most basic assumptions: that slavery in America ended with the Civil War. Blackmon unearths shocking evidence that the practice persisted well into the 20th century. And he is not simply referring to the virtual bondage of black sharecroppers unable to extricate themselves economically from farming.
He describes free men and women forced into industrial servitude, bound by chains, faced with subhuman living conditions and subject to physical torture. That plight was horrific. But until 1951, it was not outside the law.
See Blackmon’s interview below:
As early summer approaches and my classes have come to an end, I have been debating on what to read. I contemplated Lionel Trilling’s Matthew Arnold, but then concluded it would be a bit much for an early summer read; it is a monster of a work. I will read it by the end of the summer, just not at the beginning. After talking to a friend about my struggles on what to read, I have concluded that I will revisit Richard Hofstadter and his Anti-Intellectualism in American Life. This work compliments my earlier reading of The Age of American Unreason, which I blogged about earlier.
Here is what Anti-Intellectualism in American Life is about:
In many ways, Anti-intellectualism in American Life was a commentary on the increasing influence of Protestant evangelicalism, political egalitarianism, and the rising cult of practicality as the new criteria for assessing the private and public worlds. Hofstadter accused religion, politics, and the public schools of fostering in common people a resentment and suspicion of intellect, of the life of the mind, and of those who devote their lives to it. He charged that local evangelical preachers and small town lawyers and businessmen masked their bias against intellect with the rhetoric of morality, democracy, utility, and practicality. Thus, as the twentieth century chipped away at village culture, it was regrettable though not surprising that common folk, made suspicious of urbanity and learning by community leaders, reacted with a “righteous” vengeance to change and those who celebrated it. However, though Hofstadter deplored the anti-intellectualism of village life, he sympathized with those whose way of life was being swept away by the rush of events in the latter half of the twentieth century. He noted the “patience and generosity” of the common American in the face of monumental change. He suggested that the animosity between intellectuals and the common people was not solely the fault of the commoner. He recognized that the life of the villager was at odds with the life of the mind. Where common folk lead hard, belabored lives, intellectuals lead more leisured ones — lives that involved extensive education and time to read, think, and write. Hofstadter also noted that intellectuals were often at odds with their fellow Americans, but perhaps more so with their democratic beliefs. (source for this)
Filed under Books
Today is a big day for my friend and colleague Phil Sinitiere; he will be defending his doctoral dissertation at the University of Houston; Phil’s research interest centers around race and religion. Phil and I are working on a book that looks at WEB Du Bois’s writings and artistic depictions and placing them in a reader. We are opening the reader with an essay on Du Bois’s political and religious constructs; I am writing the political piece while Phil drafts the religious essay. I will say more about this project the closer we are to getting it published; we will spend sometime at the University of Massachusetts at Amherst’s archives this summer finishing the research. Until we can celebrate the completion of this book, let us wish Phil the best today as he presents his research so that he can collect the PhD. Also, congrats to Phil on the publication of his most recent book: Holy Mavericks. See the book cover below.
Filed under Academic Life, Books, DuBois, History, Research
With the exception of Richard Hofstadter’s The American Political Tradition, I have elected to add three new books to next year’s Advanced Placement United States History course; I am a big fan of Howard Zinn and his writings. Some believe his historical approach is a bit biased, but I contend what work is not. Because I like my classes to operate in a seminar hence “Harkness” fashion, outside textbook readings along with primary source readings are essential to provide students with a general historical take before we engage in topical conversations. All of the works below challenge students to think about the processes of American history from a different perspective. The only exception is the general textbook: The Unfinished Nation by Alan Brinkley, which takes a more “traditional” approach to US history. Below are the covers for the works I submitted to my department chair.
Democratic ideas are most likely to take root among discontented and oppressed classes, rising middle classes, or perhaps some sections of an old, alienated, and partially disinherited aristocracy, but they do not appeal to a privileged class that is still amplifying its privileges. With a half dozen exceptions at most, the men who had considerable position and wealth, and as a group they had advanced well beyond their fathers.
One of the things Hofstadter writes about in his many works is that of economic elitism. He described the framers as men who created an oligarchy via the Constitution only as an instrument to protect their wealth and status; he questions the democratic nature of the founders and the Constitution. Moreover, he discusses history as an entity protected by the very men who used it to enhance their status. Here, as also noted by Sociologists James Loewen, Hofstadter is critical about the intent for which elites built this (United States) country upon; he works to do what most textbooks and movies fail to do, eliminate historical heroification of dead white men.
In Lies My Teacher Told Me, Loewen attacks the teaching of high school history. When students sign up to take this course with me, I tell them to read this book. I assure students that I am not perfect nor are my courses, but I do not teach a typical monolithic high school history course either. Loewen explains in his introductory:
High school students hate history. When they list their favorite subjects, history always comes in last. They consider it “the most irrelevant” of 21 school subjects, not applicable to life today. “Borr-r-ring” is the adjective they apply to it. When they can, they avoid it, even though most students get higher grades in history than in math, science, or English. Even when they are forced to take history, they repress it, so every year or two another study decries what our 17-year-olds don’t know.
African American, Native American, and Latino students view history with a special dislike. They also learn it especially poorly. Students of color do only slightly worse than white students in mathematics. Pardoning my grammar, they do more worse in English and most worse in history. Something intriguing is going on here: surely history is not more difficult than trigonometry or Faulkner. I will argue later that high school history so alienates people of color that doing badly may be a sign of mental health! Students don’t know they’re alienated, only that they “don’t like social studies” or “aren’t any good at history.” In college, most students of color give history departments a wide berth.
Many history teachers perceive the low morale in their classrooms. If they have lots of time, light family responsibilities, some resources, and a flexible principal, some teachers respond by abandoning the overstuffed textbooks and reinventing their American history courses. All too many teachers grow disheartened and settle for less. At least dimly aware that their students are not requiting their own love of history, they withdraw some of their energy from their courses. Gradually they settle for just staying ahead of their students in the books, teaching what will be on the test, and going through the motions.
I have worked to introduce my students to various dimensions and perspectives of history; I do believe to some extent that they (students) appreciate the differences; however, I too realize that my courses are a work in progress. Thus the joy of being a passionate teacher is growth. As a teacher, I work to be a student as well; I love writing and reading new works that account for the vast amount of literature in the field. I see myself as both a teacher and doer of history: taking on projects that allow me to be a part of the historical process. This of course is what I like to utilize in my teachings. But a number of high school teachers have been under attack for poor teaching: emphasizing rote facts and glory tales that fall short of the complex conceptualization of historical analysis. I have spent the past 9 years of teaching trying not to be that teacher, though there are a few that prefer I teach “basic American history.” This is the history of the sage — or the manager of industry. I prefer the idealism of Dead Poets Society’s Mr. Keeting, who addresses the realism and dangers of traditionalism.
In his continual attack of high school history teachers, Loewen contends:
College teachers in most disciplines are happy when their students have had more rather than less exposure to the subject before they reach college. Not in history. History professors in college routinely put down high school history courses. A colleague of mine calls his survey of American history “Iconoclasm I and II,” because he sees his job as disabusing his charges of what they learned in high school. In no other field does this happen. Mathematics professors, for instance, know that non-Euclidean geometry is rarely taught in high school, but they don’t assume that Euclidean geometry was mistaught. English literature courses don’t presume that “Romeo and Juliet” was misunderstood in high school. Indeed, a later chapter will show that history is the only field in which the more courses students take, the stupider they become.
A former colleague of mine once stated: “too many high school instructors try to teach like their college instructors.” She went on to say that “by doing so is an injustice because many college teachers have also given in to the simple art of looking at history.” Hence, they operate as industrial managers thus fear too much change. They stay away from academic meetings and even fear junior colleagues because they threaten the “status” of what exists: a traditional uninventive look at the dynamics of historical analysis; it is their job to reject such junior faculty members as they reach the final stage of tenure review. If high school teachers trained under such monolithic and unchanging individuals, then the great danger is that of cyclical history teaching: one that minorities will hate because it is the same old drill. Not only will blacks and other groups hate this, but so will whites of a younger generation.
It is my job to avoid the above contention by offering students a history course from the perspective of an urban black kid who grew up with fewer privileges than they. I believe my students are lucky, and I hope they realize it; I know I am lucky to have them. In this brief reflection, I also believe the key is being in a great department. Being around people that know more makes teaching easier.
Filed under Books, Courses, History, Houston Christian High School, Howard Zinn, Teaching
I hope to start on this work soon. I am behind on my book count since the semester started. A friend of mine who also teaches sent this book to me saying:”it is a worthy read as you reflect and write about the historical processes of schools.” He is referring to my work on race and independent schools; it does not fit the model of what I hope to achieve, but it looks like it will make for a great draw on the comparisons of nonsectarian independent schools, to that of Christian independent schools; I have not decided if I am going to look at this element. I have very little time and money to expand my research. But, I have noticed that students of denominational Christian schools tend to attend denominational Christian colleges. I do know that Patrick Henry College is very conservative.
Here is a brief review of the work:
During his time as professor of government at Patrick Henry College, an evangelical institution in northern Virginia, Robert Stacey frequently urged his students “to read widely and critically, and to question all received wisdom.” Which, considering the inherent mission of any evangelical school, may come as a surprise. But for the students at Patrick Henry, Stacey’s exhortation inspired reverence. Read the rest here…
Filed under Books, Christianity, Cultural Wars, Education
I found The Age of American Unreason published in the New York Times Review of Books. I am really excited about this work and more than curious to see why historians are calling it the completion of intellectual thought unfinished by the late Richard Hofstadter. His The American Political Tradition is one of his most classic works; it is required reading in my AP United States History course. In this historical intellectual work, Hofstadter brings a more revisionist and realist account of America’s historical figures. Hofstadter, much like the Marxist historian Howard Zinn, taught and wrote history from the perspective of non elites: blacks, women, immigrants, workers, and the poor, who all had a voice in shaping the hitherto. Moreover, Hofstadter looked to end the romantic notions often used to describe the traditional white male hero of American culture (or WASP). Here is an example from his chapter on the founding fathers:
Democratic ideas are most likely to take root among discontented and oppressed classes, rising middle classes, or perhaps some sections of an old, alienated, and partially disinherited aristocracy, but they do not appeal to a privileged class that is still amplifying its privileges. With a half dozen exceptions at most, the men who had considerable position and wealth, and as a group they had advanced well beyond their fathers.
One of the things Hofstadter writes about in his many works is that of economic elitism. He described the framers as men who created an oligarchy via the Constitution only as an instrument to protect their wealth and status; he questions the democratic nature of the founders and the Constitution.~EC
There are few subjects more timely than the one tackled by Susan Jacoby in her new book, “The Age of American Unreason,” in which she asserts that “America is now ill with a powerful mutant strain of intertwined ignorance, anti-rationalism and anti-intellectualism.”
For more than a decade there have been growing symptoms of this affliction, from fundamentalist assaults on the teaching of evolution to the Bush administration’s willful disavowal of expert opinion on global warming and strategies for prosecuting the war in Iraq. Conservatives have turned the term “intellectual,” like the term ” liberal,” into a dirty word in politics (even though neo-conservative intellectuals played a formative role in making the case for war against Iraq); policy positions tend to get less attention than personality and tactics in the current presidential campaign; and the democratizing influence of the Internet is working to banish expertise altogether, making everyone an authority on everything. Traditional policy channels involving careful analysis and debate have been circumvented by the Bush White House in favor of bold, gut-level calls, and reasoned public discussions have increasingly given way to noisy partisan warfare among politicians, commentators and bloggers alike.
Meanwhile, studies show that American students are falling behind students from other developed countries in science and math, and that ignorance of basic civics class fundamentals, not to mention basic liberal arts concepts, is widespread. Ms. Jacoby notes that two-thirds of Americans cannot name the three branches of government or come up with the name of a single Supreme Court justice. She cites one survey finding that American 15-year-olds rank 24th out of those from 29 countries in mathematical literacy, and another indicating that only 57 percent of adult Americans had read a nonfiction book in a year.
In “American Unreason” Ms. Jacoby, the author of earlier books like “Freethinkers: A History of American Secularism,” proposes to anatomize this dismaying phenomenon, while situating it in historical context. Her book is smart, well researched and frequently cogent – particularly in looking at the causes of American anti-intellectualism, past and present – but just as often the material is overly familiar, blandly reprising arguments made by Richard Hofstadter in “Anti-Intellectualism in American Life,” by Neil Postman in “Amusing Ourselves to Death,” and other, more recent studies, while failing to pull these observations together into a coherent, new argument.
Al Gore‘s 2007 book, “The Assault on Reason,” did a better job than this volume in providing an up-to-date inventory of political and cultural developments reflecting the decline of reason in our national discourse, while Andrew Keen’s recent book, “The Cult of the Amateur,” provided a more detailed and original assessment of the downside of the Web’s “wisdom of the crowd.” In addition, Ms. Jacoby, like Mr. Keen, can sound moralistic at times, assuming the very tone that anti-intellectuals point to when putting down intellectual elitists.
As Ms. Jacoby sees it, there are several key reasons for “the resurgent American anti-intellectualism of the past 20 years.” To begin with, television, video games and the Internet have created a “culture of distraction” that has shortened attention spans and left people with “less time and desire” for “two human activities critical to a fruitful and demanding intellectual life: reading and conversation.”
The eclipse of print culture by video culture began in the 1960s, Ms. Jacoby argues, adding that the ascendance of youth culture in that decade also promoted an attitude denigrating the importance of tradition, history and knowledge.
By the ’80s, she goes on, self-education was giving way to self-improvement, core curriculums were giving way to classes intended to boost self-esteem, and old-fashioned striving after achievement was giving way to a rabid pursuit of celebrity and fame. The old middlebrow culture, which prized information and aspiration – and which manifested itself, during the post-World War II years, in a growing number of museums and symphony orchestras, and a Book-of-the-Month club avidity for reading – was replaced by a mass culture that revolved around television and blockbuster movies and rock music.
It was also in the ’60s, Ms. Jacoby writes, that a resurgent fundamentalism “received a jolt of adrenaline from both the civil rights laws” in the early years of that decade and the later “cultural rebellions.” She succinctly records the long history of fundamentalism in America, arguing that poorly educated settlers on the frontier were drawn to religious creeds that provided emotional comfort without intellectual demands, just as “the American experiment in complete religious liberty led large numbers of Americans to embrace anti-rational, anti-intellectual forms of faith.”
She is less successful, however, in explaining why, in the 21st century, Americans remain so much more religious than the rest of the developed world, and why matters like abortion, homosexual marriage, stem cell research and the teaching of evolution – which are not particularly divisive in an increasingly secular Europe – have become wedge issues in the United States.
The other thing that sets America apart from Europe, Ms. Jacoby argues, is this country’s insistence on local control of schools, which means that “children in the poorest areas of the country would have the worst school facilities and teachers with the worst training” and that “the content of education in the most backward areas of the country would be determined by backward people.”
“In Europe,” she writes, “the subject matter of science and history lessons taught to children in all publicly supported schools has always been determined by highly educated employees of central education ministries. In America the image of an educated elite laying down national guidelines for schools was and is a bête noire for those who consider local control of education a right almost as sacred as any of the rights enumerated in the Constitution.”
The ignorance resulting from the absence of national education standards, combined with the resurgent anti-intellectualism now abroad in the land, Ms. Jacoby concludes in this useful if less than electrifying volume, is dangerous for any country, but especially dangerous for a democracy. As Thomas Jefferson once wrote, “If a nation expects to be ignorant and free, in a state of civilization, it expects what never was and never will be.”
The Professor is an academic blog that reflects my teaching and professional relationships with both colleagues and students. It reflects my concerns and passion for the history profession, as well as current political and social issues. It even makes some attempts at making me appear human. Though I am a Christian and share the beliefs of what is one of the premier independent Christian schools in the nation, this blog is not associated with my employer, Houston Christian High School.
