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Noted
Black professor challenges audience to change
by Sana Montgomery
Jesus and Socrates, the meaning of hell, the Black struggle
in America and how it shaped a people, and moving beyond childhood
to maturity. These were just some of the subjects touched
upon by noted author and lecturer Dr. Cornell West, who opened
the 2002-'03 season of the Distinguished Lecture Series Friday.
Before a packed audience in the Wisconsin Room of the University
of Wisconsin-Milwaukee Union, West, a professor of religion
and director of the Afro-American Studies Department at Princeton
University, posed a number of questions on humanity and how
we fit in a society still reeling from 9-11-01, the war on
terrorism and its impact on Americans, particularly Black
Americans.
West's lecture reflected the influences on his life: the Baptist
Church, the Black Panthers and European philosophers and philosophic
ideas of life, death and self. Comparing Jesus to the
philosopher Socrates, West noted that "Socrates never
wrote a word, just like Jesus."
West said a person is shaped by his or her past, adding if
a person does not know or even understand the complexities
of where they came from, how can they understand how to mature?
The Princeton professor said a lot of people are not yet "grown-up"
mentally, that they have what he called a "Peter Pan
mentality," in which they are "forever young and
innocent. Many have not gone from the melodramatic to the
tragic and moved beyond." Asking the question,
"What does it mean to be a human being?" West explained
that being human means coming to terms with a form of "civic
death," continuing to face the cruel realities of the
Jim Crow laws, adding it was less than human to treat African
Americans in this manner.
"Yet some still refuse to understand how it shaped our
present." On the subject of 9-11, West said all
Americans are unsafe. "The whole country has the blues;
and yes, revenge is sweet, but immature and adolescent. "Martin
Luther King showed us how to deal with terrorism," West
continued, "but they only recognize him in January." West
said he believes in justice and hunting down gangstas, noting
he grew up around gangstas and "kept his distance."
"Gangstas don't solely come from Muslims and Arabs. There
are Italian, African American, European and Asian gangstas.
Americans need to come to grips with this understanding."
And what is hell? "Hell is losing the capacity to love,"
West said. "We have to be morally sensitive. We need
more intellectual courage, and that may mean crying sometimes.
"Anyone who has never cried has not deeply loved. Jesus
wept because He loved so."
Americans, West said, must have the courage to love and be
compassionate. "What a challenge this is."
In a time of eroding families that are not providing love,
West believes self-confidence, self-respect and discipline
can help bridge the gap between adults and their children.
"Young people must believe they matter,"
West stressed. "Spend time with them." West
said Democracy begins to die because of inequality and poverty.
"Democracy is about lift every voice, leaders listening
to a variety of voices that are engaged in robust and uninhibited
discussions.
"Understanding Socrates was about dialogue, hearing witness.
There's so much cowardice and conformity today."
Ending on what he called a "blue note" of hope,
restated there is no evidence of optimism in these challenging
times.
"Have you looked? The evidence don't look good.
West said the fact there are gangstas at the time of optimism
only means the Peter Pan mentality rules the land. "No
one can understand hope unless they understand despair."
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