[EDLING:488] Beyond the academy

[Tamara Warhol]

Although Cornel West is obviously not an educational linguist, I think his
participation in public life about topics such as race & democracy often
parallels the work of educational linguists who advocate for minorities &
bilingual and/or heritage languages, etc. -Tamara

>>From the Princeton Weekly Bulletin
December 6, 2004
Vol. 94, No. 12

West defies classification to reach beyond the academy

By Patricia Allen

Cornel West

Princeton NJ -- Cornel West believes he can't be true to his calling as a
teacher and a scholar if his career is limited to classrooms, publishing houses
or the traditional academic lecture circuit.

''People want to put you in boxes,'' West said. ''But I don't like to be
classified in that narrow way. My calling, in the end, is much deeper than any
link to any institution. There is no way that I can confine myself simply to the
academy.''

West, the Class of 1943 University Professor of Religion, is one of the nation's
most widely known and quoted public intellectuals on the topics of American
society, race, politics and class issues. His 1993 bestseller, ''Race Matters,''
was regarded as a groundbreaking book that examined the impact of racism on America.

West earned his Ph.D. in philosophy at Princeton in 1980 and was a member of the
University's faculty from 1988 through 1994, serving as professor of religion
and director of the Program in African-American Studies. In 1996, he was awarded
the James Madison Medal, the highest honor Princeton bestows on graduate alumni.
He taught at Harvard from 1994 until 2002, when he returned to Princeton.

Personal responsibility

As an academic and a public intellectual, West said he feels a personal
responsibility to reach out to many audiences and contribute to the important
topics of the day. ''I have a passion to communicate in a critical and
self-critical manner about some of the crucial issues facing us,'' he said.
''That is why I move from the classroom to the synagogue to the mosque to
prisons and to the streets. That's just my life.''

This semester, West is teaching ''Introduction to the Study of African-American
Cultural Practices'' and a freshman seminar, ''The Tragic, the Comic and the
Political.'' When not on campus, he can be found lecturing in a church in
Atlanta, attending a board meeting for the Jewish publication Tikkun in
Berkeley, Calif., talking to children in a community center in Harlem and
meeting with members of the rock group Pearl Jam in Seattle.

''Cornel's greatest gift as a public intellectual is his effectiveness in
speaking to and connecting with a wide spectrum of people,'' said his colleague,
Albert J. Raboteau, the Henry W. Putnam Professor of Religion. ''He believes
very strongly in the idea of open dialogue. He can challenge ideas and the
status quo, but he is not a divisive person. He is very civil and charitable,
characteristics that are greatly lacking in much of today's political dialogue.''

''For me, it's the Emersonian tradition,'' West said, calling Ralph Waldo
Emerson and Socrates, among others, intellectual inspirations. ''Emerson is the
first public intellectual of America who hungered most of all to communicate to
broad publics.

''That tradition is so very important, because it also cuts across disciplines
and genres,'' said West, who also counts authors and artists such as Herman
Melville, Toni Morrison and Sarah Vaughan as inspirations. ''Scholarly pursuit
can be supplemented with intellectual intervention in other parts of the world
including art and activism.''

While West gives a lot of credit to the role of artists and activists in his own
life, he says their influence has shaped the United States as well. It is a
significant theme in his latest book, ''Democracy Matters: Winning the Fight
Against Imperialism,'' released in September.

''Artists and activists have played a disproportionate role in keeping alive the
democratic tradition. We have seen it in the 1860s during the Civil War, in the
1940s during our struggle against fascism and during the 1960s when American
apartheid was sucking the life out of so much of American democracy.''

West said he wrote ''Democracy Matters'' not only because he believes ''the
American democratic experiment is in deep trouble. But the low quality of public
dialogue about some of the most important issues facing us is quite frightening.''

''We have so many fellow citizens who have simply given up being heard,'' he
said. The current political dialogue of ''liberals versus conservatives is so
narrow and truncated. There is a deep need for truth telling. We really need to
examine closely some of the basic assumptions and presuppositions. And I am not
just talking about political positions, but the very framework in which dialogue
takes place.''

West is most critical of the mainstream news media for its failure to provide a
platform for diverse voices and its inability to provide in-depth analysis and
meaningful discussion on political issues. ''We have pundits yelling at each
other,'' West said, adding that today's news organizations are driven by ratings
and profits and not truth telling.

In addition to addressing current concerns in ''Democracy Matters,'' West takes
on the issues of the day in a newly released two-disc hip-hop CD called ''Street
Knowledge.'' It is a collection of teachings set to R&B and hip-hop rhythms.

''I have a commitment to reach young people, to bridge the generation gap,''
West said about employing hip-hop as a vehicle for conveying his scholarship.
''I take very seriously the world of young people and you can't do that without
taking their idioms seriously. Certainly hip-hop culture and rap music are
dominant idioms.''

Bridging the gap

Three freshmen in West's African-American cultural practices class, Kelechi
Ezie, Misan Ikomi and Lindsay Booker, agreed that their professor seemed more
accessible because of his affinity and understanding of their generation's
ideals and youth culture. ''It's nice that he draws connections between our
modern ideas and relates them to the historical ones we are reading about,''
Booker said.

André Benjamin, known as André 3000, a member of the rap duo OutKast, agreed
that West is effective in bonding with young people. During the summer break,
West participated in a Norman Lear-produced HBO documentary with Benjamin about
voting and civic duty. The two were filmed strolling on campus as West counseled
Benjamin on the importance of youth becoming politically and socially aware.

''When meeting with Dr. West, he clearly helped me understand how every
generation is connected and responsible for the next,'' Benjamin said. ''He's a
perfect example of a well rounded man in a time when strong male role models are
rare. I left the meeting feeling if more young minds respected history we would
enter our futures with better understanding.''

''It's a beautiful thing to be able to have a dialogue with André of OutKast,''
West said. ''Here is someone who has so much to say and so much influence over
the younger generation. Just to be able to have that kind of dialogue -- to gain
both his concern and respect and for him to see mine -- are exemplary of trying
to deal with that generation gap. He ends up reading more social and cultural
criticism as an artist. In the same way, I end up being able to listen to both
his art and the art of his generation. I think that type of dialogue is Socratic
to the core.''

Delving into the entertainment world is just another way of reaching people,
West said, acknowledging the criticism he has encountered, in particular for his
forays into the hip-hop culture, which led to his decision to return to the
University in 2002.

Since coming back to Princeton, he said he has felt free to pursue all of his
divergent interests. ''[President] Shirley Tilghman embraces the vision of
Princeton relating to the world and that's been very important to me,'' West
said. ''It allows me to do my work in the academy, and take seriously its
standards of excellence and relate what I'm doing to the larger world.''

Although criticized for his ubiquitous style of public intellectualism, West
said he gets tremendous encouragement not just from his peers in the academy --
he is the recipient of 20 honorary degrees including one this year from the
University of Paris -- but from people he meets in public.

''It's the ordinary people, the brother in the barber shop or a sister in a
store, when they come up and say, 'You are teaching and enlightening me.' That's
the highest compliment.''


--
Tamara Warhol
PhD Student
Graduate School of Education
University of Pennsylvania
Philadelphia, PA
warholt at dolphin.upenn.edu