Race Matters-Preface to Chapter 4

Race Matters Preface to Chapter 4
5. The introduction to chapter 4 seemingly solidifies the rest of the book. This section sets the foundation of the rest of the book. In this section of the book I think Cornel West, wanted to have the political issues with race these days be the back bone of his book. This section shows the rage that African Americans had with the different issues in schools and in the community and why so many were angry but waited for the Martin Luther King’s and the Malcolm X’s to take a stand for them first.
4.“This paralyzing framework encourages liberals to relieve their guilty consciences by supporting public funds directed at “the problems”; but at the same time, reluctant to exercise principled criticism of black people, liberals deny them the freedom to err.” Similarly, conservatives blame the “problems” on black people themselves-and thereby render black social misery invisible or unworthy of public attention.” Page 6
“ Hence, for liberals, black people are to be “ included” and “integrated” into “our” society and culture, while for conservatives they are to be “well behaved” and “worthy of acceptance” by “our” way of life. Both fail to see that the presence and predicaments of black people are neither additions to nor defections from American life, but rather constitutive elements of that life.” Page 6
Black intellectuals are affected by the same processes as other American intellectuals, such as the professionalization and specialization of knowledge, the bureaucratization of the academy, the proliferation of arcane jargon in the various disciplines, and the marginalization of humanistic studies. Yet the quality of black intellectual work has suffered more so than that of others. There are two basic reasons why. Page 62
Yet even effective jobs programs do not fully address the cultural decay and moral disintegration of poor black communities. Like America itself, these communities are in need of cultural revitalization and moral regeneration. There is widespread agreement on this need by all forms of black leadership, but neither black liberals nor the new black conservatives adequately speak to this need. Page 87
3. Revitalization-revival: bringing again into activity and prominence; restore strength. Hedonism-the pursuit of pleasure, as a matter of ethical principle. a school of ethics which argues that pleasure is the only intrinsic good. Nihilism- a revolutionary doctrine that advocates destruction of the social system for its own sake nihilistic delusion: the delusion that things (or everything, including the self) do not exist; a sense that everything is unreal complete denial of all established authority and institutions.
2. This reading did connect to kozol’s book that showed that there were many angry people in the African American race and there were so many issues that seemingly could not be corrected. I explain the rest of the connection in the second section of kozol’s book in my second 5-4-3-2-1 paper.
1. Does anyone ever want to blame a certain race for the political issues we have to day?