West Speaks on Democracy At Grad. School of Education

America's democratic tradition cannot be sustained unless citizens inform their lives with a sense of history and empathy, Cornel R. West '73 said in a lecture at the Graduate School of Education last night.

"Tradition is not something you inherit," said West, paraphrasing T.S. Eliot '10, "It is something you obtain through great labor."

West, professor of Afro-American studies and professor of the philosophy of religion at the Divinity School, said that a legacy of racism and the effects of a market culture undermined the democratic tradition.

"I believe that we are living in one of the most terrifying and frightening moments in the history of this nation. And I thought that before the election," West said. "Is it possible to talk seriously, even here at the Graduate School of Education, about keeping the democratic tradition alive?"

West traced the roots of white supremacism in western civilization, and questioned whether race might be "the structural limit for American democracy, as patriarchy was to Athenian democracy."

"Here we have a people whose very being presents a problem. Drop a black body in a white area and you can just see the ripples. How does it feel to be cast as a problem people rather than a people with problems?" West said.

West also said he attributed the "arrested development of the democratic tradition" to America's commercial culture, which has caused a "spiritual impoverishment that cuts across racial lines."

"The ultimate result of a market culture," West said, distinguishing a market culture from a market economy, "is the systematic destruction of the institutions of nurturing and caring."

West also discussed the role of education in America.

"We in education have to look at fresh faces every morning," West said. "How can we assure that these children's smiles don't turn into tears? What will be their education?"

"Education is about having a deep sense of history, about knowing how the present is shaped by the past and how the future can flow there from," West said, adding that this sense of history must be linked to a sense of empathy. "Democracies are sustained by cutting through the surface to that empathy, linked to a sense of hope."

West also mentioned the O.J. Simpson trial.

"I was waiting for someone in the media to say something about the grace and dignity of the Simpson family. Eunice Simpson, a woman in her 80s who truly believed her son was innocent, offered not one word of hate or contempt. No matter how you come down on the verdict, you have to admire her courage."

During a question and answer period, West discussed Monday's Million-Man March on Washington, a political protest led by Louis Farrakan.

West said he will be attending despite his problems with Mr. Farrakan's positions.

"This march is not focused on Farrakan's own cause, but on the problems of all black men. My critique will be working, but I'll be there," he said.

West's lecture marked the renaming of Longfellow Hall as Askwith Lecture Hall.