Negative Images Hurt Blacks

The perception of Blacks as a "problematic people" is the source of Black rage in today's society, Cornel West '74 said yesterday in the second installment of this year's W.E.B. Du Bois lecture program.

This negative stereotyping leads Blacks to plant "seeds of self doubt and an almost morbid sense of self-consciousness," said West, who is Director of Afro-American Studies at Princeton University.

The lecture, titled "Black Rage and the Absurd," is the second in the three-part series "Being and Blackness: The Struggle against Nobodiness."

Former teacher Hilary Putnam, Pearson professorof modern mathematics and mathematical logic atHarvard, introduced West to the crowd of nearly300 in Emerson Hall.

Putnam likened introducing someone of West'sstature to "introducing someone named MartinLuther around the year 1530."

West began his 45-minute speech with a summaryof his first lecture on Tuesday, which dealt withthe invisibility and namelessness of BlackAmericans.

Speaking in a dramatic cry which sometimes sankinto a whisper, West described how society makesBlack people into "markers" and causes thesimultaneous "loss of individual identity to thehomogeneous mob of Black Folk."

He then presented the next part of his lectureas a "conversation" with Black authors JamesBaldwin, Ralph Ellison, W.E.B. Du Bois and ToniMorrison, using readings from their works toillustrate the sources of identity loss.

According to West, one source of Black identityloss is "genealogical aloneness"--a refusal toacknowledge a given name because its lineage isrooted in white supremacy.

West gave the example of a character in a ToniMorrison novel who refuses to use the name herwhite master gives her, insisting that she has noname.

But the separation of Black from whiteAmericans is only one side of the problem, Westsaid. Not only are Blacks frequently marginalized,but they are often made to feel like sources ofsocietal uneasiness as well, he said.

"How does it feel to be not just an object, buta problematic object?" he queried.

West answered his own question with a referenceto Du Bois, saying that one's first perception ofself often comes through other's eyes.

The white perception of Blacks is often"dirtying," West said. He described an examplefrom his own childhood, when he entered a swimmingpool only to have "all the little white brothersand sisters run out" and the pool drained later.

In the second part of his lecture, Westdescribed how society's "dirtying" of Blacks leadsto pretense or revolt in the form of Black rage.

According to West, Blacks today aredemonstrating a different kind of anger: "rawrage--coarser, less open for dialogue" thanprevious Black resistance to societaldehumanization.

This shifting nature of Black rage frightensWest, who said "the best of the Black freedommovement cannot live and survive in the midst ofhate and fury."

He ended his speech with a promise to speakdirectly to this rage in his third lecture, whichhe will deliver today at 4 p.m. He also called for"courage and integrity from the best of the Blackfreedom movement."

The lecture series is sponsored by the W.E.B.Du Bois Institute for Afro-American Research andthe Department of Afro-American Studies

Former teacher Hilary Putnam, Pearson professorof modern mathematics and mathematical logic atHarvard, introduced West to the crowd of nearly300 in Emerson Hall.

Putnam likened introducing someone of West'sstature to "introducing someone named MartinLuther around the year 1530."

West began his 45-minute speech with a summaryof his first lecture on Tuesday, which dealt withthe invisibility and namelessness of BlackAmericans.

Speaking in a dramatic cry which sometimes sankinto a whisper, West described how society makesBlack people into "markers" and causes thesimultaneous "loss of individual identity to thehomogeneous mob of Black Folk."

He then presented the next part of his lectureas a "conversation" with Black authors JamesBaldwin, Ralph Ellison, W.E.B. Du Bois and ToniMorrison, using readings from their works toillustrate the sources of identity loss.

According to West, one source of Black identityloss is "genealogical aloneness"--a refusal toacknowledge a given name because its lineage isrooted in white supremacy.

West gave the example of a character in a ToniMorrison novel who refuses to use the name herwhite master gives her, insisting that she has noname.

But the separation of Black from whiteAmericans is only one side of the problem, Westsaid. Not only are Blacks frequently marginalized,but they are often made to feel like sources ofsocietal uneasiness as well, he said.

"How does it feel to be not just an object, buta problematic object?" he queried.

West answered his own question with a referenceto Du Bois, saying that one's first perception ofself often comes through other's eyes.

The white perception of Blacks is often"dirtying," West said. He described an examplefrom his own childhood, when he entered a swimmingpool only to have "all the little white brothersand sisters run out" and the pool drained later.

In the second part of his lecture, Westdescribed how society's "dirtying" of Blacks leadsto pretense or revolt in the form of Black rage.

According to West, Blacks today aredemonstrating a different kind of anger: "rawrage--coarser, less open for dialogue" thanprevious Black resistance to societaldehumanization.

This shifting nature of Black rage frightensWest, who said "the best of the Black freedommovement cannot live and survive in the midst ofhate and fury."

He ended his speech with a promise to speakdirectly to this rage in his third lecture, whichhe will deliver today at 4 p.m. He also called for"courage and integrity from the best of the Blackfreedom movement."

The lecture series is sponsored by the W.E.B.Du Bois Institute for Afro-American Research andthe Department of Afro-American Studies