Anonymous says:

Cornel West is a light skinned mulatto, who pretends to be otherwise, and his contribution to civilization is one more boring book that’s critical of whites. I will agree with him on one thing, however, race does matter, and this is what it means to me: My father was born in Tipperary, Ireland in 1903, and he witnessed a lot of the trauma which involved Europeans during this century: including the Irish uprising in Dublin (1916), the Irish Civil War (1922), the gangsters of Chicago, World War Two England, and managed to live until he was 86 years of age. He died in his bed (but not the one that a German bomb had once left, strangely, high up in a tree). An especially quiet and dignified man from Ireland’s Protestant culture, with a regal kind of appearance, at least one neighbor had convinced herself that he was a retired judge. Never any more than a hardworking aircraft builder who began and ended his working life in cabinet making, we knew dad was the grandson of an admiral in Britain’s navy. And for us that explained everything about his quality.Decades earlier dad had seen something special in mom besides her Irish Catholic background, so he converted (at least on paper), married her, and they had three children. Two of these were born in England, my brother Kenneth (1947) and myself (1948), before dad brought us all here to America in 1954 Later they had a U.S. born daughter, Lynn (1957). Dad had been to this country earlier, where among other work he took on, he served as an engineer and test pilot for Henry Ford’s airplane manufacturing plant (in the days when Edsel Ford would actually stop to greet him enthusiastically by name). Not surprisingly, dad saw America as a center for incredible opportunities and the best place to live. He liked Americans and he was determined to be one himself, though he never quite lost his Irish accent.In 1954, as the Queen Mary entered New York harbor with our emigrating family, he and mom excitedly called out for my brother and I to come quickly and look out the port hole just above a bench seat against the cabin wall. Quitting our game of playing tag around the dining room tables, my brother and I took turns being held up high enough to peer out, and we used our hands to block the glare from inside. I could see the silhouette of a huge statue out there in the dark, it was a lady holding up a bright torch in the driving rain. What do you see? My mother wanted me to confirm that I could see something extraordinary: “I see a lady with a torch, Mammy,” I replied in the proper English accent that’s long since eroded. And although the full symbolism of it was indecipherable for me at that moment, and Americans often thought the vignette was suspiciously corny when they heard it told, Liberty made an impression that was forever etched into my consciousness. Prior to seeing her I had already seen a lot for a five year old, including England, Ireland, and the Queen Mary riding out a storm at sea.My father and I came to sharing such reminisces one day while sitting in the yard behind the house where he had retired in Northern California. The sun had climbed high overhead, and without either of us having to verbalize it our camaraderie of the moment was intensified. We had a sense that death might not be far away (An accurate enough estimate, for in a few years he died.)Our conversation completed all kinds of turns that day, going through adventures both humorous and frightening (Like the time we had to walk a row boat out of San Francisco’s Lake Merced, using the bank to gain a footing, because the wind and rain made it too hard to row. Or the night we drove back from Reno nursing a broken water pump with small amounts of water that “together” we gathered from the most unlikely and widely scattered faucets along the road). Eventually he became especially pensive, and we got into more spiritual contemplations when he was prompted to say:”I know that you believe some things very different from what I believe, and so I was wondering where you think we’ll be after we die?” Dad’s concentration was zeroed in like an archer poised to strike at some distant target, and he was encouraging me to clarify my own take on the matter. I could also see that this would be one of those rare times when he was going to listen for as long as necessary to understand this unfamiliar side of his own son. I said, “race is my religion, and I look there for the answers to the greatest puzzles.” And he asked: “What answers do you get on this one, about the afterlife?” And I began: ” I see the seasons come and go, as nature brings life and then death in continuous cycle, and I see ourselves as an integral part of that process, not just something separate from it.” As an especially active sportsman, one who had hunted and fished throughout his life, he was on the right wavelength with this. Then he said: “But what becomes of us when we die?” Then I turned to see him for emphasis: “When the plants growing on this earth have done their job they die, but look in the Spring and they come back to us. Very few things about them ever change. What is important is that enough of them survive and prosper to multiply themselves. When you die you can count on living through me and your other children, and through any grandchildren or other relatives that follow” Then he said: “And what of us as individuals. Are we just dead forever?” “Our DNA is passed along, and because of that I resemble you. “That’s not a total survival of me,” he countered, with the especially quick response of someone who was concerned about the finer details of race for quite some time. And so I said: “How much of an individual must survive in one place to qualify as complete survival? To me it seems an incorrect assumption to believe that the purpose of the individual, of our genes, is to survive alone. I believe that we travel through life physically blended with our family, and no matter what difficulties and disappointments arise, our family is always with us.”And dad said: “I notice the Bible has a lot of genealogy information, it even devotes space to dealing with the genealogy of Jesus; so what you’re saying doesn’t really contradict what I’ve always believed.”As if to acknowledge that there was no great difference in this generation gap, and that it was only natural that we were of one mind on such a vital issue, he added “Whether you are right or the preachers are right, people survive the death of their physical forms.”"Yes, that’s true, ” I said, “And you and I will always be together.” Then he smiled, and I read on his face that he was no longer worried, because we really were there together. And the sun continued to shine down on our faces.
Rating: 1 / 5

Anonymous says:

When you read this book, make sure that your mind is totally void of all thoughts, so that you can fully comprehend exactly what Dr. West is pointing out! Besides needing a dictionary to read it, everything in the book is true, well written and to the point. I especially love the quote from Malcolm X about race relations in America…
“You don’t stick a knife in a man’s back nine inches and then pull it out six inches and say you’re making progress.”
Rating: 3 / 5