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?
What does it mean to be a featherless, two-legged, linguistically conscious
creature born between urine and feces?
Boy that really brings us together in terms of our commonality doesn't it?
Most importantly, as Plato says: "Learning how to die in order to learn how to live."
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.
This issue of coming to terms with death is a crucial one.
when Montaigne says "To philosophize is to learn how to die," when Seneca says "He
or she who learns how to die unlearns slavery."
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 on forty percent of the wealth and it is esclating all the time.
But Professor West isn't it the case
that the statistics look so good, the economy's in magnificent shape?
Given the statistical view of the economy, yes. Given the human view of the economy
there's still catastrophe.
I still live in a country
one out of two children of colour, black and brown, under six years old, live in
poverty in the richest nation in the history of the world that's a moral disgrace.
Spiritually obscene that the most innocent can still be locked into poverty.
Hardly any discourse about it, any party. 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 kinds
of quality of lives are people living in those hoods, in those barrios, on those
reservations? White poor in Appalachia, white working people so confused that
they would choose a billionaire so deeply tied to big money, big military,
and I would say mediocre but that would be a compliment.
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.
It was not primarily or I should say pre-eminently political,
it was driven by a certain moral and spiritual force that allowed
them to intervene in the political map. But with spiritual blackout, a spiritual
whiteout, it's all power, power, power,
interest groups, interest groups, interest groups, whoever has the power wins. We're back to
Thrasymachus in Plato's Republic: "Might makes right and whoever has the
might is right." Or as Abraham Joshua Heschel used to say, "View life like a gold rush you gonna end up
worshiping a golden calf and the golden rule becomes
he or she who has the gold - usually a he in the patriarchal world - he who has the
gold makes the rules.
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.
So there was time to sacrifice for something, give me integrity rather than popularity,
give me integrity rather than cupidity, at least I go to the grave with a
smile on my face saying I'm trying to be true to grandma and granddad and those
folk who shaped me in such a way that I would just be decent rather than rich or
wise rather than just smart. I see students all the time in Harvard - may not
be the case at University of British Columbia, you all fall along in this regard.
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?
That's what's required in talking about race matters,
class matters, gender matters, empire matters, homophobia matters and
yet our young folk drifting, many trying to bounce back. Black Lives movement very
important indeed. Me Too movement very important indeed. Best of the trade union
movements, weak and feeble as it is but still trying to fight back.
Anti-militaristic movement very crucial.
And that's precisely what the best
University of British Columbia, thirteen years now in the making. Rich prehistory
with its own educational institutions. Thirteen years in the making.
Trying to say fellow students, whosoever will. Canadian, non-canadian, across the
board. Come to terms with race matters and gender matters and empire matters
and class matters and homophobia matters.
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. Never came the terms with its white and
male supremacy. Never came to terms with this predatory capitalism in which a one percent
could live lives of luxury and others barely gaining access to many
others barely getting access to necessities. And that's what we're
fighting against. And for me it's always the question of not so much talking
about just winning, but it's a matter of talking about what kind of human being I
want to choose to be in the short time that I'm here so that I have to come to
terms with the white supremacy inside of me.
The male supremacy inside of me.
The xenophobia inside of me and try to kill it every day. You can't do it alone
you need comrades, friends, partners, family to help you kill it every day.
Reconquer it every day as Faust says and Goethe's classic. 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.
Thank you all so very much.
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