Comments on: Black intellectuals are needed…

By: butting in

butting in — Sun, 26 Feb 2012 06:46:26 +0000

DJ, you should disengage from textbook talk. The ability to reason “intellect” is as rare as common sense and is even more rare amongst those who have so-called BOOK sense.

Thomas Sowell runs circles around Cornell West!

By: DG

DG — Fri, 20 Jan 2012 14:59:43 +0000

Victor I am not disparaging him. I am criticizing him. My point is this. How outlandish would it have been if someone told you Malcolm X, Dr. King, James Cone, Huey Newton, WEB Dubois, etc. was going to do a class on James Brown or another other contemporary artist.

As someone who prides himself on being a Black pragmatic intellectual, and close to my PHD course like that demean the Black intellectualism. Pop intellectualism designed to get fame and media coverage.

It is immaterial the content of the class, it is the premise of the class. Why? Because premises are the foundations of intellectualism, and intellectual discourse bro.

At the end of the day, to reiterate, Cornell West is the only nation Black intellectual on the scene.

By: Victor

Victor — Fri, 20 Jan 2012 08:19:34 +0000

@Arthur
@DG
@Dr. Marsha Coleman-Adebayo
I see your point, Arthur, that we need to get to work right here, discussing, debating, etc.
I also see the sense you make DG, but I would not disparage Bro.Dyson as lacking anything based on the title of a course he teaches. Your really cannot tell all about a book simply by looking at its cover. So it is with a course.
Finally, Dr., I hope we do not cannibalize the president because the right wing media (not any black preachers I know of) dripping with sarcasm calls him the “Chosen One”. As you note there is already far too much cannibalism in our community!

By: DG

DG — Thu, 19 Jan 2012 20:08:20 +0000

Dr. I enjoy the title, but I don’t think you adequately addressed the deficit in national Black intellectualism.

Personally I think “pop-intellectuals” like Michael Eric Dyson and his class on Jay-Z demean the field, and I also feel that the forced dichotomy of liberalism and conservatism in America has also damaged the intellectual.

Remember all of our historical movements were preceded by a philosophical underpinning that sought to address our condition. From the philosophy, activity and rhetoric were then implemented to drive participation and hopefully create large scale change.

We don’t have that now. I was listening to Malcolm and Martin the other day. Someone posted a spliced video on youtube as a debate between the two PHILOSOPHIES. I found it so inspiring to listen to the brothers talk about our condition from the foundation of clear philosophical position.

Cornell West unfortunately is the only relatively national figure that gets any shine for his philosophical stance on the Black condition. Until we demand or promote leaders that are driven from an intellectual philosophical position that is clear and unique to our condition we will always run around without a clear vision as to why we are doing things.

By: Victor

Victor — Thu, 19 Jan 2012 19:26:55 +0000

“We the voters certainly voted for him, but he has failed to live up to the promises that could have helped stop African-Americans still being systematically disadvantaged, thrown out of their homes by malicious banks, disproportionately unemployed and languishing in poor-achieving public schools.”

I wrote a piece a long time ago. It was entitled “If it’s to be, it’s Up to Me.” My intent is not only to deflect your criticism of President Obama, but to suggest that as intellectual, we show more rigor in our analyses. For example, is it really reasonable to suggest that any person including you, me, Dr. Dubois, or Dr. King could have ended in three years as president “poor-achieving public schools?”

By: James Davis

James Davis — Wed, 18 Jan 2012 14:15:56 +0000

What We Can Do Now Today Is What We Should Do!! Join Us!!

Many of us over the last several months have seen an African American President and a Caucus of Congressional Blacks more interested in preserving their positions of leadership, than crafting legislation which would be beneficial to the Black community which is suffering its worst crisis since the Great Depression. Black unemployment, has been in double digits for to long. Think about it, how can any community sustain double digit unemployment rates among its males above 15.0% and among its females, above 13.0 % ( these are the official numbers) for 3 straight years and now heading into a 4th year continue to be vibrant and nurturing, influencing the lives of its young people? This is the state of Black America. If you intellectuals have truly been influenced by the truth of the suffering now being endured in our community, the obvious next step is to coalesce behind a plan to create jobs in our community and force it upon a reluctant and entrenched Black leadership, being led by an overly circumspect President. I have long been and advocate of this statement, “We are weak because we do not act and we do not act because we are weak, so evil prevails.”
http://www.change.org/petitions/how-to-create-jobs-now-join-us
http://www.sslumpsum.com

By: M. Obiajulu

M. Obiajulu — Wed, 18 Jan 2012 13:29:52 +0000

Hear, Here Sista!

And leave the crabs ‘justa fussin in their barrel’!

By: William Jackson

William Jackson — Wed, 18 Jan 2012 05:00:17 +0000

It goes beyond tenure, it means that the Black community
must respect intellectuals and listen to them as they did
with Carter G. Woodson, W.E.B Dubois, Dr. Martin Luther
King, Jr. Malcolm X, A. Phillip Randolph and others.
Not only listen to them, but follow and model them.
When you have Dr. William Cosby talk the truth, then you
have Blacks put him down there is a problem. Snoop Dogg and
other rappers can influence Black youth to buy their music with
profanity, sexual suggestions, drug use and violent suggestions,
but Dr. Cosby gets talked about and smeared.
What does this say about the parents and their children values
and accountability?
I’m a professor at a local college and teach at an elementary
school, both are inner city schools and majority Black.
The disparity is amazing what our Black youth do not know and
when you try to teach them they do not comprehend the importance
of reading the newspaper, watching the news or reading chapter
books, but they know the newest club song and dance.
Granted there are more that value education, but there seems
to be more youth that either do not care or the negative
influences out weight the positive ones.
@ben
Thank you for mentioning the responsiblity of parents. As a Black male teacher, I’m not respected by many Black parents because I’m thought of a uppity, too white and too educated.
I teach Physical Education and computers so go figure, my students
admire me, but the parents are interesting.
There needs to be a shift soon and the increase in the value
of education, before Blacks are thought of even more as invaluable
and not contributing to society. Blacks will be thought more as
political foder to build more prisons, medical experimentation and
a reason to expand the drug infestation and drug trade in Black communities.

By: ben

ben — Wed, 18 Jan 2012 03:27:32 +0000

I have not attended any church that has anointed President Obama as the chosen one. If I was in attendance of such church I would exit immediately. He is a president we elected and not a messiah. If we continue to sit around waiting for a messiah, we will never stand in our rightful position. Obama can’t make parents become proper parents; he can’t make folks attend PTA meetings; he can’t make folks value education more than a new pair of Jordans; he can’t make our community reinvest our dollars back into the community; he can’t go into homes and turn off the TV; he can’t make parents read to their children etc, etc.

I problems can not be solved by government…But guess what, we can solve them!

Granted Obama is not above criticism…however please read this post on what he has done… http://harveysglobalpolitics.blogspot.com/2012/01/andrew-sullivan-how-obamas-long-game.html

By: Arthur

Arthur — Wed, 18 Jan 2012 02:43:05 +0000

Dr. Coleman-Adebayo, thank you for that thought provoking piece. You note that Harold Cruse in “The Crisis of the Negro Intellectual,” said “a resurgence of Black intellectualism would require a “conscious community of intellectuals who are committed at an institutional level to create new lines of communication.”

However, today the internet in general, and thyblackman in particular, provides us with that mechanism. Some intellectuals have degrees and some do not. But together, here, we can discuss, debate, organize and plan our future. In the words of Booker T. Washington, “Cast down your bucket where you are.” It is up to us to rally the people to whatever endeavors we have a mind to. Let’s get to work.