Life Is Not a China Shop

Although the dispute is reportedly settled, the residual effects of the recent controversy between Harvard President Lawrence H. Summers and Fletcher University Professor Cornell R. West ’74 merit thoughtful reflection. If what has been reported is true, then I am troubled with both sides of the controversy.

If West was chastised for participating in a rap album, working with Al Sharpton on a prospective presidential campaign and for failing to write “scholarly” material worthy of Harvard’s prestige, then such criticism deserves rebuke. I am no fan of rap music, yet one wonders if West were cutting a CD on classical music whether he would be criticized or praised. As for assisting in a prospective presidential bid by Sharpton, surely the First Amendment does not end at the iron-wrought gates of Harvard. Sharpton has his political and personal agenda as does every political candidate. Most will not take him seriously as a presidential candidate should he run. Yet he has a right to petition the American people. West is a great scholar and a credit to Harvard. It would be hypocritical of Harvard to denounce an academic who holds the distinguished title of University Professor as “unscholarly.” Would Harvard bestow such rank upon an educator who is undeserving? If so, what does that say about Harvard?

While Summers may have dropped the ball on diplomacy, West and his distinguished colleagues appear to have dropped the ball in two major respects. First, it diminishes the standing of black scholars at Harvard when media seekers such as Jesse Jackson are brought in to presume to mediate what should have been a private dispute. If brilliant Harvard educators, including Climenko Professor of Law Charles J. Ogletree, cannot exercise sufficient negotiation and conflict management skills to resolve a simple communication dispute without bringing in Jackson—whose own moral authority is now in question—then what message does that send?

Second, the “bull in a china shop” analogy made by senior black Faculty members hurts people of color more than it does the intended target, presumably Summers. The analogy suggests that Summers was rough and tough, yet it also suggests that African-Americans are fragile like china, that we should be handled with care, lest we break apart. Martin Luther King Jr. was not china, nor was Thurgood Marshall, Sojourner Truth and numerous other African-American heroes who faced many “bulls” in their quest for justice and never broke apart. As an African-American public official in western Massachusetts, I often face many “bulls” who are uneasy with the idea of a powerful black man, and thus their public criticisms are not so kind. Yet I do not operate in a china shop world, and I am not about to break and fall apart when faced with criticism far more harsh than what has been reported in this matter.

Yes, race matters at Harvard. Race also matters at Princeton and elsewhere. But people of color—students and workers—do not have the luxury and privilege to simply pack up and leave their schools or jobs whenever they encounter racial discomfort. I would hope that our esteemed professors would be sensitive to the fact that, for most people of color, life is not a china shop.

Shenandoah Titus is a graduate student in the Extension School and the Human Rights Director of Amherst, Mass.