Cornel West: Race Matters | Video Lecture Series

Описание: In this installment of our video lecture series on philosopher Cornel West, the the famous speaker explores race in the age of Trump.

"Line 38A in Plato's Apology: "the unexamined life is not worth living."

You cannot talk about race, vicious legacies of white supremacy. You can't talk about gender and vicious legacies of male supremacy. You cannot talk about capitalism and the rule of capital over workers, which too often makes it difficult for working people to gain access to lives of decency and dignity. You can't talk about Empire.

We began with an acknowledgement of our very precious and priceless Indigenous peoples and acknowledging that it's not just a symbolic gesture, but it's a reminder of the subordination, the violence, the dispossession, and yes we must work with what we've got, indeed. But first to talk about the tradition that produced me in regard to race matters is not to begin with discussions about policy and politics, no. These are deep spiritual and moral issues, it has to do with the examined life.

The Greek actually says the unexamined life is not a life of a human. We know our English “human” derives from the Latin "Humando." H-U-M-A-N-D-O. And humando means burial and burying.That we are beings on the way to burial. And to talk about race is to raise the question, “What does it mean to be human?”

That has everything to do with wrestling with what it means to be human and contesting, responding to the vicious legacy of white supremacy and other evils. We could talk about the anti-Jewish hatred, anti-Arab hatred, anti-Palestininan hatred, hatred of women, hatred of gays, hatred of lesbians, hatred of bisexuals, hatred of trans, hatred across the board. I'm zeroing in on the white supremacy, I just want you to know, that we need a universal vision when you're talking about what it means to be human.

We can't even begin to talk about race unless we begin with the spiritual and moral dimensions of who we are. It's never a question of name calling and finger-pointing, it begins with one's own self. That's the Socratic moment. One percent of the population own forty percent of the wealth and it is escalating all the time.

Why? Because to live in a world of denial is to live lives on the surface.

The superficial levels of spectacle and image as opposed to substance, moral substance. Spiritual content. What has been distinctive in the history of those who have tried to speak directly to race matters like the Frederick Douglasses, like the Ella Bakers, like Martin Luther King JR., is that they always started on a moral and spiritual plane and then engaged in trying to shatter the forms of evasion and avoidance of coming to terms with the suffering and the misery of those whose humanity was called into question.

Everywhere you go it's just a matter of brand, brand, brand. Thank God I was raised in such a way. In talking about race matters I never have a brand, I come from a people who were branded for two hundred and forty four years with a concrete brand as they were enslaved, I got a cause, I don't have a brand. I got a calling. I don't just have a profession. I have a vocation, I don't just have upward mobility.

I got the students and "I got to be the smartest in the room," no! Don't worry about being smart let the phones be smart. You be wise. A lot of smart white supremacists, a lot of smart misogynists, a lot of smart anti-Jewish folk, anti-Arab folk, where's the wisdom? Where's the
compassion? Where's the empathy?

Really learn how to die so when you graduate you won't just say "I went to college" but also say "a college went through me."So you become more empowered, ignoble, humbled, broadened, more mature, more willing to take a risk and pay a cost. More willing to learn and listen with an intellectual humility but also an intellectual tenacity.

Humility is always the benchmark of spiritual maturity connected to tenacity.

That's the history of black people at our best in America and if we don't revive it in the next five to ten years you can rest assured that the curtain will be brought down on a precious democratic experiment called the USA that never came to terms with its empire.

You can't do it alone you need comrades, friends, partners, family to help you kill it every day. And do we have the capacity as a nation? Do we have the capacity as a species? That is an open question.

But we need no guarantees in order to choose decency and dignity. I hope we so choose."

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