A Response to Professor Kilson

Following is the text of Kristen M. Clarke '97's response to Professor Kilson's letter.

One of the most interesting pieces of literature that I have most recently read is Professor Martin Kilson's Memorandum to Black Intellectuals. In this stimulating piece, Professor Kilson notes that we [the Black intelligentsia] are in the mainstream but losing the brothers. The Black Have-Something sector or the bourgeois-consolidating Negroes are attaining higher levels of political and economic incorporation, while the Have-Nots remain entrapped within the lower-class sector. Professor Kilson's analysis is brilliant and his concerns should be shared by all.

As president of the Black Students Association (BSA), I feel compelled to clarify several points. Professor Kilson's recommendation for outreach to the Black poor is one of the prime concerns of the BSA's agenda. This year we have successfully worked to channel more Black students into Phillips Brooks House community service programs--particularly in the community of Roxbury. We have painted murals in Roxbury and we have openly extended invitations to students at Cambridge Rindge and Latin High School to join us in our activities. In fact, I would like to invite the class to join us this week for our end-of-the-semester project at Martin Luther King Elementary School. We will work with the students for a few hours, sponsor a pre-vacation party for them and translate the principles of Kwanzaa into a context that would be extremely beneficial to them.

We were not prompted by cathartic needs to do this. I can't imagine a more productive way to teach Black children the significance of unity, cooperation, creativity, faith etc., than in a way that engages them through Afrocentric means directly in the classroom. Kwanzaa is the penultimate expression of formalized African-Diasporic significance in America.

Please note that the above mentioned projects are events that would never be covered in The Crimson.

In regard to the "xenophobic Afrocentrist" (per label of Professor Kilson) the BSA sponsored on November 30, I would like to iterate the purpose and the outcome of Professor Martin's speech. We all embrace the opportunity to hear several perspectives on various issues so that we can form opinions for ourselves. In light of this, the BSA sponsored events with political scientist Andrew Hacker, social psychologist Jeffrey Howards and Professor of Africans Studies Tony Martin, who offered individual responses to The Bell Curve.

Professor Martin offered a unique angle on The Bell Curve by tracing the evolution of racist theorization from the Hamitic myth, to Thomas Jefferson's notions of natural aristocracy, to Social Darwinism, to The Bell Curve theory. His speech raised interesting points that serve to further the debate. Whether we choose to challenge or substantiate his ideas, we do so in the spirit of academic pursuit.

Nonetheless, reaction to his presence on campus highlights the need for serious dialogue to take place between Blacks and Jews. Note that this event did not create the need, but inadvertently served to highlight the need for dialogue. We are now immersed in a desperately needed forum in which we can share our viewpoints and attempt to realize or rebuild common ground on the issues. Perhaps we can now work to create a solid and lasting alliance between Blacks and Jews that might serve to promote understanding and awareness amongst our groups on campus.

An alliance is much more potent than an imagined contract based on silence. I can hardly conceive the horror that would eventually erupt if we were to remain silent and complacent on the very issues that people are contending with beyond the borders of Harvard. Indeed we suffer the longterm consequences when we ignore the very issues that our "brothers" deal with outside the mainstream.

I hope this year that the BSA will create a bridge with the brothers (don't forget the sisters, Professor Kilson) or that we will at least instill the energy in people to once again concern themselves with the pressing issues at hand. As a perceptive Black student, I am disturbed by the apathy, complacency and quiet amongst some brothers and sisters on campus.

I share the same concerns as Professor Kilson--concerns of male neglect, runaway teenage births and Black on Black violence. Certainly the right answers to these problems have not yet been found. But if even our "college-educated" brothers and sisters aren't instilled with the passion and drive to begin examination of these issues, these problems will continue to plague us.

Kristen M. Clarke '97 is president of the Black Students Association.