Jewish World Review March 3, 2004 / 10 Adar, 5764

Stanley Crouch

Crouch
JWR's Pundits
World Editorial
Cartoon Showcase

Mallard Fillmore

Michael Barone
Mona Charen
Linda Chavez
Ann Coulter
Greg Crosby
Larry Elder
Don Feder
Suzanne Fields
James Glassman
Paul Greenberg
Bob Greene
Betsy Hart
Nat Hentoff
David Horowitz
Marianne Jennings
Michael Kelly
Mort Kondracke
Ch. Krauthammer
Lawrence Kudlow
Dr. Laura
David Limbaugh
Michelle Malkin
Jackie Mason
Chris Matthews
Michael Medved
MUGGER
Kathleen Parker
Wes Pruden
Sam Schulman
Roger Simon
Tony Snow
Thomas Sowell
Cal Thomas
Jonathan S. Tobin
Ben Wattenberg
George Will
Bruce Williams
Walter Williams
Mort Zuckerman

Consumer Reports


Great minds should
tackle grim reality


http://www.NewsAndOpinion.com | Last week at New York University, a panel was presented under the title "Beyond Black and White at NYU: Racial Strategies in the 21st Century." It could have been on just about any American campus today because it reflected the distance that academics so often have from the particular problems of our moment and any concrete sense of what is to be done.

So many academics who have been hired to assess American problems as they arrive in the arenas of race, sex and labor have arrived at the same conclusion: They have bought into an idea of "progressive" politics that almost always closes them off into a mode of left-wing cliches that are no more impressive than those we get from the right.

Let's get one thing straight, however: The participants - NYU Prof. David Levering Lewis, author of an acclaimed W.E.B. DuBois biography that won a Pulitzer in 1994; NYU Prof. Angela Dillard, author of "Guess Who's Coming to Dinner Now: Multicultural Conservatism in America;" Prof. Michael Hill, author of "After Whiteness: Unmaking an American Majority," and NYU Prof. Pamela Newkirk, author of "Within the Veil: Black Journalists, White Media" - were about as far from being dumb and simple-minded as Savion Glover is from a suffering from a lack of rhythm.

Lewis is surely one of our most gifted historians and the rest of them are not bums, either. But the discussion drew a picture of demonic opposition in corporations, among Republicans and in the world of American journalism.

Not addressed was the fact that the lack of engagement on the part of black Americans is epidemic and more fundamental to their future than any crew of greedy corporate executives. Nor was the impact of technology on the workplace, which demands strategies that work down here on the ground.

Donate to JWR


What we need to learn is how and why certain schools such as the Kipp Academy and Thurgood Marshall Academy and others like them across this country have defeated the intellectual suicide of young black people. We need to prepare ourselves for the time when many people will be hired, assigned work, paid and fired through E-mail in a cyberspace world where race, class, sex and religion are all secondary to performance and competitive labor costs. That is how it is.

Strategies based in such hard facts could provide our nation with approaches that will transcend color in their effectiveness.



Donate to JWR


Like this writer's work? Why not sign-up for the daily JWR update. It's free. Just click here.


JWR contributor and cultural icon Stanley Crouch is a columnist for The New York Daily News. He is the author of, among others, The All-American Skin Game, Or, the Decoy of Race: The Long and the Short of It, 1990-1994,       Always in Pursuit: Fresh American Perspectives, and Don't the Moon Look Lonesome: A Novel in Blues and Swing. Send your comments by clicking here.

Up


02/24/04: Education's the answer to job losses
01/06/04: Rising sense of risk unites America with the world
12/23/03: GOPers are clueless in making the most of issues that will draw black voters
12/19/03: Rev. Al is going for a lot more than the glory
12/16/03: Eye for an eye is inadequate for Saddam
12/04/03: Pop culture's new low: Slut chic
11/25/03: Jacko's the sick king of industry that preys on kids
10/30/03: Forget Ghettopoly, black music's the insult
10/28/03: War shuts borders, and this is war
10/15/03: Whites saved the blues
09/19/03: Release of home-grown terrorist is an outrage!
08/16/03: Wising up about our enemies
09/11/03: Will we allow those who were burned alive, jumped from windows or crushed to death on Sept. 11, 2001, to have left this world in vain?
08/28/03: Refinement drowns out pop chaos
08/14/03: Hip hop's thugs hit new low
07/15/03: Target gangs — terrorists of the cities
07/08/03: Prez is making inroads with blacks
06/24/03: It's not profiling, it's good policing — and it works
04/22/03: America is just built to succeed
04/15/03: Being top dog requires bark, bite & brains
03/25/03: New Yorkers know why we are fighting this war --- sadly
11/26/02: Miss World riot: The new lynching
08/23/02: Little Leaguers, not thugs, are the mainstream
08/05/02: Bigger boom means, alas, a bigger bust
07/26/02: Sharpton just can't get off the high wire
07/08/02: U.S. is better than founders ever dreamed
07/01/02: Aid to Africa helps fight terrorism
06/26/02: Glimpses of threats fortify U.S.
06/14/02: U.S.'s Own Powder Keg --- Convicts & Converts
06/04/02: Only the evil escape lives of pain & sorrow
05/31/02: A Better FBI? I'll Believe It When I See It
05/24/02: This Is War, & Rudy's Still Giving Good Counsel
05/22/02: Our culture is becoming cartoonish
05/14/02: A chance to sew up new allies
04/30/02: Time to get serious on immigration
04/18/02: When it comes to race, we're all mixed
03/27/02: Civil rights groups are neglecting a profound crisis in their midst
03/12/02: Race-baiters can forget this Tex. case
02/26/02: The unmasking of a phony black hero
02/06/02: I will not call shots based on skin color
02/04/02: Saying No to Tyson: Integrity Beats Out Greed
01/28/02: If Mike Tyson's a monster, he had lots of help
01/18/02: The 'Roots' of huckster Haley's Great Fraud
01/09/02: U.S. can't let its guard down now
12/31/01: If the price is right --- just do it!
12/21/01: 'American Patriots': Book hat's a Gift for All Seasons
12/04/01: Tightening our immigration policies is cruel?
11/29/01: Modern-day abolitionists need help
11/27/01: bin Laden has exposed hard truths
11/20/01: Facing the hard truth about Africa & slavery
11/13/01: Let military run security for air travel
10/23/01: The media, where threats to flesh and blood have little meaning
10/17/01: Red, White Blue, black and white
10/11/01: We stand armed with compassion
10/05/01: Drawing the line on racial profiling
09/14/01: Let's rise above worst instincts
09/07/01: HBO's now big shaper of culture
08/21/01: Is Sharpton a changed man?
08/03/01: A writer misuses the great Louis Armstrong
07/20/01: When murder is justified
07/06/01: America's democracy has a music to it
06/29/01: The soul and pluck of women are to this nation's development
06/22/01: This history is music to my ears
06/08/01: A School Succeeds, A Union Fails
06/05/01: Sharpton's rise and fall
05/25/01: Third World Unity? Sorry, It's Just a Dream
04/13/01: Two murderers, two twisted fantasies
04/06/01: The problem with art is artists
03/16/01: Bush still has some pretty serious image problems he better address ASAP
03/09/01: Of gangsters, gangstas --- and spin

© 2003, NY Daily News