YT YouTube2Text

YouTube2Text → Transcripts → of Black studies & Black study: the function of futurity in Africana studies w/ Josh Myers

of Black studies & Black study: the function of futurity in Africana studies w/ Josh Myers — Transcript

by Africa World Now Project Collective · 8,243 words · 1,453 segments · language en · Watch on YouTube

Open in transcriber Summarize with AI Download SRT/VTT

Full transcript

0:16these are African
0:19rhythms pass down to us through ancient
0:23Spirits fill the
0:25spirit a unifying
0:28force come on move with the spirit stand
0:33up clap your
0:36hands r with the Rhythm get down from
0:40wsnc 99.5fm a broadcast service and NPR
0:43affiliate of Winston Salem State
0:45University Welcome to Africa World now
0:47project I'm your host and producer James
0:50Pope today of black studies and black
0:53study the function of Futurity in
0:56Africana
0:57studies Africa World Nail project is
1:03[Music]
1:20[Music]
1:28next
1:33if you listen to Africa World now
1:35project regularly or occasionally you
1:37will notice a consistent line of
1:39thinking an intentionality in
1:42programming that attempts to push your
1:44our thinking and Imagination in order to
1:46promote a sense of connectedness by
1:48centering and mapping an Africana past
1:51present and
1:53future we are intent to develop a form
1:56of thinking black out loud that attempts
1:58to contribute to the long tradition of
1:59of Africana disruptive practice not
2:02simply as intellectual posturing or
2:04elitist academic Ms but as an
2:07evolutionary project a practice to
2:10invoke ancestral approval and situate
2:12every word every thought every
2:15conversation in the Traditions that
2:17Africana peoples have engaged in
2:19throughout history put another way we
2:21are consistently occupied with mapping
2:23and African ancient past through an
2:26intentional commitment to move toward an
2:28African future to see through and Beyond
2:30struggle this practice is not new
2:33Africana peoples have engaged in a
2:35particular Form and Function of
2:36knowledge production active knowledge
2:38production in around outside and in
2:42spite of Academia for centuries always
2:45together in community in Commons often
2:49and always creating intentionally and
2:51unintentionally a maroon space and
2:54undercommons africon ways of knowing are
2:56more systems than institutions
2:59especially in institutions as
3:00conceptualized by Western European ways
3:03of knowing nevertheless the Africana
3:06being cannot fit into such limited
3:08conceptualizations of Institutions this
3:10is not to say institutions are not
3:12important as systems often produce
3:14institutions but this is why tradition
3:16or more exactly Traditions often serve
3:19as the appropriate descriptor of the
3:20black experience and the propensity to
3:23use this descriptor indicates the
3:25presence of an identifiable genealogy
3:27while leaving room for evolution AFC
3:30ways of knowing are rooted in a holistic
3:31epis of evolutionary practices that
3:34create and recreate the conditions
3:36within which Africana peoples find
3:38themselves as needed but always
3:41impacting at a molecular level anything
3:44it interacts with accordingly it was the
3:47vibrations of the assertion of an
3:48Africana Humanity that pulsated in the
3:51activities of students and academic
3:52allies to push University curriculums to
3:55teach the histories cultures and
3:57intellectual strivings of Africa and
3:59people of of Africa descent who were
4:01occupying those spaces these vibrations
4:03were reverberations of larger struggles
4:06and symbiotically related to the
4:08assertion of an africano Humanity that
4:10was being waged apart from the
4:13University there are many sources that
4:16explore this push into the academy
4:18Professor Abdullah Khat has just
4:20published two from my perspective
4:21interdependent treatments of this
4:23history one titled the history of black
4:26studies and the other dialectics of
4:28Liberation the African Liberation
4:30support movement nevertheless we are at
4:33a point yet again that the forms and
4:35functions of black studies are being
4:37assessed on one level of assessment its
4:40institutional expression as interjected
4:42in the western Academy has produced a
4:45feedback loop that is part and parcel of
4:47a blind allegiance to disciplinarity
4:50while on another More Level the
4:52assessment is rooted in the ancestral
4:54and historical mandate at the center of
4:56black studies an assessment of its role
4:59and responsib ability to recreating the
5:01world around us further exploring this
5:04evolutionary engagement with the paraxis
5:06of Black Thought radical black thought
5:08to be specific the unspoken but known
5:12motive is what many are beginning to
5:14recognize as black study this inevitable
5:17practice of Engagement with the Africana
5:19experience is determined to evolve the
5:21focus of the cyclical questions no
5:24really black study is a clear and
5:26intentional disruption of these
5:28questions and any ways black study asked
5:31why are these questions still being
5:33engaged black study is an articulation
5:35of the boy's potent reflection when he
5:37wrote to the real question how does it
5:39feel to be a problem I answer seldom a
5:42word it is also important to note that
5:44for the boys and the long tradition of
5:46radical thinkers whom he influenced and
5:48were influenced by understand this
5:51problem is but a local phase of a global
5:53problem do we need Africana studies or
5:56what is black studies or what was Black
5:58studies highlight two important glaring
6:00observations first that all critiques of
6:03its Form and Function must be assessed
6:05and measured against Western European
6:07practices and two and I would argue more
6:10importantly these questions highlight In
6:12This Moment the limits that have been
6:14inculcated in the processes of knowledge
6:16production from what seemingly became a
6:18singular Focus to House Black Thought in
6:21white
6:22institutions in short africano forms of
6:24knowing and ways of being are
6:26incompatible with this to quote Saul
6:29Williams from Neptune Frost my truth is
6:32encrypted and yours is easy to
6:35read nevertheless the real questions
6:38suggest that black studies must be
6:39assessed against its Origins within the
6:41paraxis of africon radical struggle
6:43outside of European constructed
6:46institutions to engage do we need black
6:49studies is essentially affirming how
6:51does it feel to be a problem even in its
6:54most watered down Expressions black
6:56studies specifically from its Origins
6:58have always put pushed against Western
7:00European institutional practices and its
7:02insistence to narrowly construct and
7:04restrict knowledge production we can see
7:07this in discourses around what is
7:08probably clear expression of liberal or
7:10NE liberal thoughts such as
7:12intersectionality or critical race
7:14Theory these expressions are not
7:16inherently radical those who claim to be
7:19of and in the tradition of Africana
7:21studies or black studies who are
7:22promoted because of their abilities and
7:24the words of Adolf Reed to interpret the
7:27opaquely Black Heart of Darkness for
7:29white
7:30distort but cannot stop the evolution of
7:32black studies the seeds of evolution the
7:35evolution of black studies to Black
7:37study were planted in Africa's Ancient
7:39Future Futurity is innate in Africana
7:43prais Futurity is the twin of the past
7:47and present they are
7:49inseparable the seeds are indeed in the
7:51very Africana being the very practices
7:54conscious and unconscious Behavior
7:56captured in the process of moving
7:58towards freedom a process that black
8:00study is aware of and some are pouring
8:02their energy into expanding and
8:04exploring these spaces in between spaces
8:07the extraordinary and not so
8:08extraordinary catian practices of
8:11Africana peoples with this I would like
8:14to present as a point of reflection a
8:16pivot away from the binary nature and
8:18limited forms of knowing that
8:20continually question the legitimacy of
8:22black studies or Africana
8:25studies even with the discipline being
8:27firmly established in quote Elite
8:29unquote institutions are caused by an
8:32intentional and often forced divorce of
8:35the political nature of black studies
8:37black studies or Africana studies
8:39departments and programs were stripped
8:41of faculty and projects that included
8:43politics political education and the
8:45insistence to build a sustainable bridge
8:47between the academy and Community this
8:50process led to the theoretical and
8:52epistemic removal of Africa from the
8:55Africana questions around what Africana
8:58studies is are dominated by what
9:00Africana studies is not Dr Greg Carr's
9:03meditation on this important Point can
9:04be found in his article what black
9:06studies is not moving from crisis to
9:08Liberation and intellectual work not to
9:10mention Michael thewell argued that any
9:13attempt to discuss the question of what
9:15has come to be called black studies or
9:17quote ethnic studies unquote as it has
9:19come to be known in specific
9:21geographical locations that incubator of
9:23meaningless pop jargon outside of the
9:25political perspective is futile the
9:28demands on the part of of black students
9:29and their activist mentors were a
9:31response to the political realities of
9:33the black community these questions no
9:36matter where they're being as are all
9:38rooted in a hermeneutic cyclical
9:40feedback loop that could be best
9:41explained in many ways through the
9:43contradictions produced and concretize
9:45from its insistence on finding
9:47legitimacy and the white
9:50imagination More Than This the
9:52problematic in these questions is in
9:54itself rooted in a western European Time
9:56construct that is alien to indigenous
9:58forms of of knowing and ways of being
10:00produced from complex forms of knowledge
10:03and ways of being that Africana people
10:05produce freely and through Force to
10:08measure progress in such a limited
10:10notion of the infinite to attempt to
10:12build an understanding of the Eternal is
10:15like counting the drops of water in the
10:17oceans by starting with counting the
10:18grains of sand on its beaches Josh Meers
10:22suggests the same sentiment as he begins
10:24his meditation on the questions and
10:26considerations around black studies and
10:28what you would hear next when he states
10:30that for him the question do we still
10:32need Africana studies is ien to asking
10:34do we still need air today of black
10:38studies and black study the function of
10:41Futurity and Africana studies next you
10:44will hear Josh Meers provide a few
10:46important thoughts and many
10:47considerations around black studies in
10:50addition to being a member of the Africa
10:51World Nail project Collective Josh Meers
10:53is an associate professor of Africana
10:55studies in the department of
10:57afroamerican studies at Howard
10:58University he is the author of we are
11:00worth fighting for a history of the
11:02Howard University student protest of
11:041989 and the recently released cedc
11:07Robinson the time of the black radical
11:08tradition as well as editor of a
11:10gathering together literary journal his
11:13research interests include Africana
11:15intellectual histories and traditions
11:17Africana philosophy musics and food ways
11:20as well as critical university studies
11:22and disciplinarity his work has been
11:23published in critical ethnic studies
11:25journal the Journal of African-American
11:27studies the Journal of P African studies
11:30the human rights and globalization law
11:32review Liberator Magazine global African
11:34worker puka and burning House Press
11:37among other literary spaces his current
11:40Book Project of black study has been
11:43submitted and will soon be published
11:45with Pluto press our show was produced
11:47today in solidarity with the native
11:49indigenous African and afrod descended
11:51communities at Standing Rock Venezuela
11:53coroporation Jackson and Jackson
11:54Mississippi Brazil the Avalon Village in
11:57Detroit Colombia Kenya pales South
11:59Africa Ghana ATI and other places who
12:02are fighting for the protection of our
12:03land for the benefit of All Peoples
12:06enjoy the
12:08[Music]
12:14program do we still need African
12:17days and so I'm going to show some uh
12:21images but I'm going to mostly
12:23read um and I've titled my comments a
12:29set of questions and
12:32considerations so if we read it together
12:35the black Legacy at universities do we
12:37still need African 20ies a set of
12:40questions and
12:44considerations it is difficult for me to
12:47answer the question do we still need
12:49African
12:50studies it is akin to asking do we still
12:54need
12:55air Africana studies is like breathing
13:00and it breathes life to me to us for it
13:03is the foundation for
13:06knowing not just knowing history or
13:09current conditions not just knowing
13:11facts and data not just knowing black
13:14stuff it is the foundation for
13:18knowing and that is the approach that I
13:21take to the project of Africana
13:23studies it was an approach bequeathed to
13:26me like breath to an infant so I guard
13:29it
13:30jealously what would knowledge be if we
13:34oriented ourselves in the ways we think
13:36to African experiences in the world
13:38across time and
13:40space it seems to me that if we did this
13:44we might encounter that African people
13:45have complex ways of handling life's
13:47vexing
13:48questions what it is to be with and for
13:51each other to truly
13:54love what it is to be human and relate
13:56to all other forces seen and unseen
14:00what it is to
14:01live to
14:03die these are considerations that are at
14:06their base the theory and method of
14:09black
14:11study a project of how to disrupt the
14:15conditions which make us knowing
14:17ourselves a radical
14:21Prospect let me read that
14:25again a project of how to disrupt the
14:29conditions which make us knowing
14:31ourselves a radical
14:34Prospect while those conditions have to
14:37be struggled
14:38against we must not lose sight of what
14:41we are struggling
14:44for freedom is the lack of
14:48constraint the lack of
14:50conditionals the absence of the need to
14:53constantly declare one's
14:56humanity and black study is a the
14:58freedom
15:00practice and so you see me making a
15:03slight
15:05distinction between what Scholars have
15:08been coming to call Black
15:10study my frame on this is that black
15:12study is this ongoing living
15:15project of creating knowledge against
15:17and for against the conditions that
15:20prevent us from from knowing ourselves
15:22and for
15:24Freedom Africana of studies or black
15:26studies is that project within the
15:28University
15:30and so hopefully you can see the
15:32importance of this distinction and that
15:34is what we're actually doing in these
15:37spaces in the university is not the only
15:40place where you can do
15:42this and in many
15:46cases this living ongoing project of
15:49black
15:50study actually envelops black people
15:53wherever they
15:57are the difficult task for practitioners
16:00of Africana studies is to be able to tap
16:02into
16:04that in places like the university in
16:07the classrooms really where we teach
16:09black students where we encounter black
16:13students we'll talk more about that in a
16:16second but I want to make that
16:18distinction now because you'll hear me
16:21using both terms black study and black
16:25studies black studies is in the in the
16:27University black study is in the
16:29University but much at the same time
16:30much larger than the
16:33university it emerged out of student
16:38Struggle No One expected that students
16:41who integrated historically white
16:43academic spaces in the 1960s would
16:45attempt to overturn the central
16:47assumptions of those
16:49spaces this righteous struggle perhaps
16:51could have been predicted had they known
16:53that these students were air to
16:55something called the black radical
16:57tradition
16:59Cedric Robinson who was in fact one of
17:02these students called this tradition
17:05quote an accretion over generations of
17:07collective intelligence gathered from
17:11struggle it called for and imagined a
17:14world where Africans could set the terms
17:17for their own lives as against the
17:20requirements of
17:21capitalism
17:23colonialism and
17:25imperialism we were people for whom the
17:27connections between the spiritual and M
17:29and material world provided evidence of
17:32the essential questions of life as well
17:34as charted ways for us to live in the
17:37future to live
17:39[Music]
17:41again and everything black radicalism
17:43fought against Was A disruption and
17:45negation of that knowledge that form of
17:49life so I'm going to pause there for a
17:51quick second to sort of give some more
17:52context this is sric Robinson um his
17:55latest
17:57text came out last year 2019 3 years
18:00after he made his transition he passed
18:02away in
18:052016 the text that I quoted from is the
18:09other book Black Marxism the making of
18:10the black the black radical
18:13tradition and so essentially what he's
18:15saying is that every time or every
18:18moment of black people saying no to
18:21slavery saying no to oppression saying
18:24no to colonialism saying no to
18:26imperialism saying no to somebody
18:27putting their hands on them is part of
18:29the same
18:32tradition and you don't understand that
18:34tradition by the act that black people
18:37engaged in you understand that tradition
18:40by what they were engaging in that act
18:41for to create to
18:45imagine and what he argues is that black
18:48people throughout the diaspora not just
18:51in the United States of
18:53America throughout the diaspora
18:56participated in action
18:59that were geared towards reconstituting
19:02the connection between the spiritual and
19:03the material world because that's how
19:06they understood
19:08life slavery was a negation of
19:14life and
19:16so our ancestors collectively said this
19:18can't be
19:20life and we going to live our best
19:25life which meant that we had to separate
19:27ourselves from these condition of
19:28impression and recreate life the the
19:31first principle of that is something
19:32called Marin or
19:35maroonage okay I'm looking for chalk now
19:38cuz I'm
19:45improvising all throughout the African
19:47diaspora whether you talking about the
19:49West Indies whether you talking about
19:50Latin America whether you talking about
19:52the continent of South America whether
19:54you're talking about the United States
19:56black people created systems known known
19:58as maroon communities collectively known
20:00as
20:03marinaj societies that were distinct
20:06from the plantation separate from the
20:09plantation autonomous from the
20:12plantation where black people could live
20:13their best
20:16life and so those who escaped had
20:18somewhere to go too I think we talk
20:21about runaways a lot particularly in the
20:2319th century American history right the
20:25Underground Railroad Harriet Tubman and
20:28nobody ever asked where they
20:31going is the North
20:37Freedom and what happens before you
20:39could even go to the
20:41north CU you know slavery existed there
20:44too did black people not run away during
20:46that
20:48period maroon is just the answer of
20:50where we were
20:52going again
20:54autonomous societies set apart from the
20:58Plantation where black people could live
21:00on their own self-determining
21:03terms and so when you read s Robinson's
21:08work and by the way anytime you see a
21:10picture of a book that means you should
21:11read the book that's up
21:13there I work hard putting this together
21:16so you can read these books don't listen
21:18to me I mean listen to me but also read
21:22the
21:23books well what he does in that second
21:25book Black Marxism is he said he charts
21:28many instances of black people doing
21:30this the first instance instance
21:32happened in 1520 something the last
21:34instance that he covers happens in 1870s
21:381880s in places like Brazil in places
21:41like Haiti in places like Cuba in places
21:43like Virginia where we are now if you go
21:48east Africans were resisting in this
21:53state some of y'all are descendants of
21:55black people that said hell no what does
21:58that
22:00mean Robinson says this is a
22:03tradition and so what happens in the
22:051960s is that people who were
22:09descendants of these radical Africans
22:11decided that they would create maroon
22:13spaces in Western
22:17universities and so there's a direct
22:19connection between maroonage and black
22:21studies in the
22:26academy and that's one of the real clear
22:30messages that I want to send
22:32today that these spaces were created out
22:36of radical struggle it's the only reason
22:38that they are here there's no University
22:40administrator that decided in their
22:42Infinite Wisdom that black students
22:44should have these
22:48faes no people who were like you your
22:51age in your station in life decided that
22:55we should have black studies how did you
22:57get the idea
23:00idea there's a
23:02tradition and traditions are passed
23:09down we fought to get back to
23:15ourselves it was a fight that took
23:17different
23:19forms but it gave the generation of the
23:211960s the foundation to demand maroon
23:24space in the western Academy spaces from
23:26which to imagine that fight would be
23:29like for our
23:30futures they could see us
23:34then and their Wildest Dreams to use a
23:36famous meme their Wildest
23:39Dreams were for our
23:41Liberation our Liberation from thinking
23:44we have to ask permission to know
23:49them as if that kind of permission could
23:51be granted
23:55anyway black radicalism rather than than
23:58inclusion or diversity was the central
23:59thrust guiding the freedom dreams of
24:02black students at the moment of the
24:03birth of African studies and if you
24:05still need African studies we still need
24:07the black radical
24:09tradition because we still need
24:11life everything that is happening around
24:14us in 2020 is the essential opposite of
24:17that which gives life racial capitalism
24:20the most devastating human and
24:21ecological catastrophe in human history
24:24is the very meaning of
24:26modernity the most consequ IAL forms of
24:28capital accumulation emerg out of a race
24:31based system of
24:32othering and
24:35difference that eventually applied to
24:37humans of African
24:40descent that's when they designated us
24:42as
24:44black or
24:46negro that is a construct that assumed
24:49that one was without it's what negro
24:52means well without what Robinson writes
24:55quote the Negro had no civilization no
24:58cultures no religions no history no
25:01place and finally no
25:03Humanity that might command
25:05consideration end
25:08quote that's what that construct
25:10means that's what it means to be
25:16raced this is to say that we were only
25:19bodies labor
25:23chadow a curious notion of Western
25:25thought is that the body and mind were
25:27split some of Y read uh the
25:31car so the African mind did not matter
25:35their bodies were the meaning of their
25:37Humanity or lack
25:40thereof in her famous letter to her
25:43colleagues Sylvia winter responded to
25:46the Los Angeles rebellion of 1992 by
25:50asking how did Notions of who gets to be
25:52defined as human rendered black males in
25:56particular during the Rebellion as quote
25:59nhi which stood for no humans
26:02involved this police code they literally
26:05used this police code in the radio
26:06during the during the Rebellion when
26:08they were encountering black men nhi no
26:11humans involved this police code was
26:13part of a classificatory
26:16logic that created
26:18race and lied in quote the founding
26:22epistem and this rigorously elaborated
26:26disciplinary paradigm
26:28end
26:30quote so what winter is saying is that
26:32the same logic she she's talking to her
26:34colleagues she's a philosopher at
26:35Stanford or she's writing
26:38philosophy says the reason that they can
26:40say nhi and apply it to black people is
26:42because race is at the center of Western
26:44disciplinary
26:46practice it starts from philosophy it
26:48starts from Western philosophy this Cate
26:50categorical logic this classificatory
26:52logic that renders some people as human
26:54and other people as not human
26:58after all I think therefore I am well
27:00who is
27:02I who gets to be an
27:06i who was not invited to the
27:09table in fact who who gets to
27:13determine the not
27:15eye because you need a not eye to
27:17determine an
27:20eye so winter has devoted her life to
27:23working out these particular projects
27:25here's another book
27:28which has her picture on
27:30it the great Jamaican theorist Sylvia
27:36winter with that philosophical project
27:39at their backs Western Society produced
27:41an immense amount of wealth with much
27:43energy devoted to negating African
27:45Humanity which made it all possible and
27:48as capitalism Blossom so did the
27:50ecological disruption that attended it
27:52the Decay that we are experiencing under
27:54racial capitalism and we can never
27:56forget the settler genocide side it also
27:58it has also occasioned has also produced
28:01climate
28:01change the earth is weeping and she is
28:05begging for her
28:06life but we humans will die before she
28:10does to elaborate and extend the
28:13prediction of the indigenous Sage John
28:16Hollow
28:17horn so the states for understanding the
28:19tradition of thought that animat
28:21Africana studies are truly High we have
28:24much to say about the manifold issues
28:26that are besetting beings In This Moment
28:28along with climate change we should ask
28:30how black study interrogates questions
28:32of permanent War the continuity of
28:34Imperial inventures among capitalist
28:36countries throughout the
28:38world we could examine the various ways
28:40Notions of harm against marginalized
28:42population mirror the antagonisms that
28:45also designated the African and Native
28:47as
28:49unhuman as they are gendered and
28:53sexualized we could offer ways of
28:55freeing cultural and linguistic interven
28:57ventions from the death grip of Western
28:59Humanities and Aesthetics rendering them
29:02useful for attaining Notions of beauty
29:03and truth that do not impose hierarchy
29:06and
29:08inferiority we could posture that living
29:10together building community and
29:12friendship extending definitions of
29:14family might resolve the liberal
29:16propensity to atomize the
29:19individual and the attendant policy
29:22Solutions based on this flawed
29:24premise there is no space in the western
29:26imagination Untouched by the difference
29:28making project of the West otherwise
29:31known as
29:32racism undoing it is not only imperative
29:36it would require more than alternative
29:39modernities it would as wter molo writes
29:42require an alternative to
29:47modernity and perhaps if we listen
29:50intently to our ancestors we could hear
29:53them saying like web du boys remarked in
29:591896 quote the Negro race has a
30:03contribution to make that only it can
30:07end
30:08quote that friends is why we need
30:11Africana
30:14studies having said that of course the
30:16question becomes how and the question of
30:19how is where the tension lies the grand
30:22questions that we need to resolve to
30:23ensure human survival have generated
30:25particular traditions of resistance and
30:27response in the west these are called
30:30ideologies in colloquial terms these are
30:32called our politics what are your
30:34politics what are my politics what is
30:36what are their
30:37politics while both terms fail to really
30:40generate useful routes to the kinds of
30:42black radical practices that animate our
30:44tradition they offer us some space to
30:47consider that which has been evaded in
30:49Black studies departments as we speak
30:51today that black studies is a how more
30:56than it it is a
31:00what it is a how we get
31:05free this makes it inherently a threat
31:07to the
31:08university which is an intellectual
31:10project of conservatism and the
31:12maintenance of the status
31:14quo but our predecessors knew
31:17that so some of them argued that the
31:20safest space to Institute a true black
31:24study was within a black University
31:29and no they were not talking about HBCU
31:32as near and dear to my heart as they
31:34are these calls in fact came from HBCU
31:38themselves what they meant was that the
31:40university system itself had to be
31:43abandoned and new institutions oriented
31:45to our realities created on their ashes
31:48Howard students felt that the
31:50institution had to be recreated even
31:52renamed Sterling Brown University after
31:56the poet and and Patron Saint of the
31:58Black Arts
32:00Movement just as there were students
32:02kicking in the doors at historically
32:04white universities so too were
32:06historically black colleges subject to
32:08the spirit of the black of black student
32:11resistance the black radical tradition
32:14was all around them so I have two photos
32:17here one is from 1968 you see them
32:19renaming Howard University a black
32:22University the Assumption in fact
32:25probably due to recent Google commercial
32:28that Howard has always been this blackly
32:31black wakanda kind of woke
32:35place betrays his own
32:38history the students in 1968 felt it
32:40wasn't
32:43Black second picture is from
32:471989 21 years later it was still the
32:51case and that's the story that I tell in
32:54my book we were fighting for
32:57okay actually I have the picture up here
33:01too so
33:03somehow
33:05the university did not listen to the
33:09students and their really comprehensive
33:12demands in
33:131968 so they faced the same issue again
33:16in 1989 so what my book tells the story
33:19of is not just the protest itself but
33:22what the meaning of the protest what
33:24what what meanings lay behind the
33:25protest
33:28and what's significant about that
33:31is the first
33:33demand of the
33:35students was not the impetus for the
33:39protest the impetus for the protest was
33:42the University choosing a
33:44republican Strate strategist by the name
33:46of Lee Atwater to the Board of
33:51Trustees for context I don't know if you
33:53ever heard of Steve
33:55Bannon anybody
33:57that would be like Howard choosing Steve
33:59Bannon to be in the Board of Trustees
34:00that's how bad Le at order
34:04was he literally was responsible for
34:07George HW Bush becoming president
34:09through a racist campaign
34:12ad which also means that he responsible
34:14for George W
34:17bush y'all know what happened in 20 2008
34:21right and so these literal they call
34:25them they still call them um what's the
34:29word
34:31mercenaries shaping public
34:33opinion these have consequential impacts
34:37on people's
34:39lives somebody in here had a relative
34:42that went to the Iraq war or the
34:44Afghanistan
34:47war God forbid somebody here has a
34:50relative that
34:51died but in terms of humanity you know
34:53the scale of human suffering caused by
34:56War unnecessary War not just among
35:00people that we know but people
35:01throughout the
35:02world millions of Iraqi
35:06people so it's interesting that the
35:08kernel of this
35:11is perhaps one could draw a parallel to
35:14Someone Like A Le
35:16Atwater and
35:18Howard decided that they would put him
35:21on the Board of
35:24Trustees the students in 1989 said we
35:26thought we were a black
35:29University so they forced the
35:31University's hand and he was removed
35:33because they for 3 days they occupied
35:35the administration building and said we
35:37don't want Lee at water on our
35:39board and the university responded by
35:41calling the
35:45cops I won't reveal too much more about
35:48the book but that's basically the thrust
35:49of the
35:50story but their first demand was for
35:53black
35:53studies now we already had a black
35:55studies Department because of the
35:57students in 68 but what happened is that
35:59it was not being supported by the
36:01university and so the student said we
36:03should have black studies
36:05censored in the University we were in
36:07HBCU after all we a black University
36:10after all and so they said that black
36:12studies must be the center of what we do
36:14at Howard
36:17University and in that it recalls
36:19something D Boyce wrote WB Boyce wrote
36:22in 1933 called the field and function of
36:25the American Negro College
36:28what does it mean to have a black school
36:30that is not actually starting from black
36:34experiences it's an interesting
36:38question and
36:41so as that's happening in HBCU there's
36:44also a conversation happening in hwcu
36:47which some people call pwis I don't call
36:49them that because they're historically
36:50white so they're
36:55hwcu
36:57and when they surrendered and
36:58relinquished the spaces we now inhabit
37:00the question became what to do now how
37:03to continue how to practice this
37:06political tradition from within the
37:10gate what do you do now that somebody
37:12gave you a space call African studies
37:14what you do
37:16now women like June Jordan and Tony C
37:20and wrote beautifully from their perch
37:23at Cy City University of New York sorry
37:26City College New York ccny
37:28y about what spaces needed to be cleared
37:31what was possible in these new
37:33spaces their words resonate
37:37today in her realizing the dream of the
37:39black
37:40University and this is her picture and
37:42that's the cover of her book her
37:45pamphlet Tony Kade bombara asked us to
37:49take notice of the students who have
37:51been sold a false
37:53dream Professor fauler this resonates
37:56with what we were talking about today I
37:57didn't even
37:58know but it was already in my
38:00presentation and you'll hear exactly
38:02what I'm talking
38:03about here's a quote from bombar he says
38:06what happens to the student who is not
38:08satisfied with a surface discussion of
38:10democracy socialism at all in a
38:13political science course but wants to
38:15examine the theories in Vivo as it
38:18were what happens to the student who is
38:21all to aware that the laws learned in an
38:24economics course do not operate in
38:26practice for they do not take into
38:28account greed exploitation racism
38:31politicking monolithic corporations
38:33powerful families or individual
38:34industrial
38:36thugs what happens to the student who
38:39wonders if the free market and free
38:41enterprise are not some easy rationale
38:44for actual inequalities in the real
38:46world what happens to the student who
38:49spends 3 weeks learning about the
38:50Electoral College in some objective way
38:54and finally learns in 1968 that the
38:56quickest way to teach it would be to
38:58start with the observation that the
39:00Electoral College is a machine to keep
39:02the power out of the hands of the
39:05people in
39:07short what happens to the student who
39:10cannot or will not operate in the
39:14schizophrenic Right Way a good student
39:16has been trained to with real life on
39:20one hand and academic life on the
39:23other some leave and in fact a great
39:27many of our students have thrown up
39:28their
39:29hands some become
39:32Sleepwalkers shorting out is one thing
39:34we have been traditionally conditioned
39:35to
39:36do some can juggle skitzy business and
39:39retain some semblance of honesty and
39:41Sanity but at Great
39:44costs some blow up and others hope for
39:47and work for a viable alternative to the
39:50madness Within These
39:51Walls it is to these latter groups that
39:54I address
39:55myself and I'm
39:58optimistic about doing so for they are
40:00in large numbers and beginning to get
40:02organized and are currently infecting
40:04others with their
40:06health beautiful Tony C bar infecting
40:09others with their health I love
40:13that but I might love June Jordan a
40:16little bit more I'm sorry Tony K don't
40:19make me choose don't make me
40:22shoes because June Jordan says I
40:25understand that these students come from
40:27particular families but and for a
40:29particular purpose but they also are
40:31black students too like you you don't
40:34just lose your Blackness when you become
40:36educated not in this world and so what
40:39do you do in that particular moment she
40:40says in her essay black studies bringing
40:45back the
40:47person that when we enter the
40:49gate using this metaphor because most I
40:52League institutions have these large
40:54gates to keep you know the others
40:58out but when we enter the gate we seek
41:02Community we seek
41:05family and quote black
41:09studies the engineer the chemist the
41:11teacher the lawyer the architect if he
41:13is black he cannot honorably engage
41:16career except as a black engineer a
41:18black architect of course he must Master
41:21the competence the perspectives of
41:22physics chemistry economics and so forth
41:26but cannot honorably or real
41:28realistically forsake the origins of his
41:31possible person or she
41:34cannot nor can he escape the tyranny of
41:38ignorance ex except as he displaces
41:41ignorance with
41:43study study of the impersonal the
41:46immorality of the science anchored by
41:48black
41:49studies the urgency of his heart his
41:52breath demands The Knowing of the truth
41:56about about
41:57himself the truth of black
42:01experience and so black students looking
42:04for the truth demand teachers least
42:07likely to
42:08lie least likely to perpetuate the
42:11traditions of lying lies that def face
42:14the father from the memory of the child
42:17we request black teachers of black
42:19studies it is not that we believe only
42:21black people can understand the black
42:23experience it is rather that we
42:26acknowledge the difference between
42:28reality and
42:31criticism as the difference between the
42:33host and the
42:36parasite end
42:38quote that's June Jordan and I love this
42:41picture of
42:43her both of them both of those women
42:46were creative
42:48writers poets novelists short story
42:52writers but they wrote essays that I
42:54quoted from about black studies what
42:56does black Studies have to do with a
43:01poet and what you read one way to answer
43:04that is what you read or what you heard
43:06what you read in their
43:08essays is that they are
43:11articulating an
43:14epistemological how an epistemological
43:23how it's not just a political how
43:30this is where I enter many of these
43:33conversations so let us quickly trace
43:35this
43:37momentum in the early days of black
43:39studies Circle late 1960s and early
43:421970s there were a number of black
43:44studies conferences convened by a than
43:46tank called The Institute of the black
43:47world this organization was originally
43:49linked to the Martin Luther King Center
43:51for nonviolence in Atlanta but quickly
43:53became the intellectual epicenter for
43:55black studies within the Atlanta
43:56University Center there's a book on the
43:59Institute of the black
44:02world the Summers featured seminars with
44:04directors of theing black studies
44:06programs peppered all across the country
44:09as these discussions matured one of the
44:11key considerations became the question
44:13of what made black studies unique those
44:16gathered quickly concluded that there
44:18was such a thing as a black
44:20perspective and this would be the
44:22foundation that black
44:24studies would be created
44:27one of the directors of The Institute of
44:28the black World Vincent Harding that's
44:30him on the
44:32left next to him is Bill strickling I
44:35know people just I saw the uh or maybe
44:37some people did maybe some people didn't
44:39just saw the who killed Malcolm X
44:41Netflix uh docu series you really want
44:44to understand Malcolm X Bill
44:45Strickland's one of the authorities in
44:461995
44:48documentary on malol call malol X make
44:50it
44:54plain but what Harding argued was that
44:57black studies was quote a new land a
45:01freedom dream like nothing we have known
45:03here in
45:04America it is nothing we have been
45:07promised here black history tells us
45:09that but it also tells us that we can
45:12build and we
45:14begin with an entirely new understanding
45:18of ourselves and our
45:20surroundings black
45:21studies black
45:24creativity black hope
45:27end
45:27quote by mid decade the National Council
45:30for black studies was born in Charlotte
45:32North Carolina under the leadership of
45:35Bera
45:36Maxwell it quickly went to work on
45:39developing a Core Curriculum and by 1980
45:42a critical convening of black SCH
45:44Scholars took place at Cornell
45:46University the chair of its Department
45:49James E Turner collected the papers
45:53there and wrote a forward that continues
45:55to frame the particular practices of
45:58black studies that resonate with how I
46:00came to know this work that's Professor
46:02Turner right there and you see to his
46:04right to your left that's a that's uh
46:06Jimmy bwin James
46:11bwin in fact it was Cornell University
46:14that really began the practice of using
46:16the designation of Africana studies so
46:19that's the designation that we use here
46:20at Virginia T here's the history of
46:24that this term was far more expansive
46:27not just of geographical scope but of
46:29cultural
46:30orientation John Henry Clark's paper
46:33this this is Dr
46:35Clark at this conference asserted that
46:37quote black is an honorable word and I
46:40am glad to see so many people lose their
46:42fear of using it but it has its
46:46limitations black or Blackness tells you
46:48how you look without telling you who you
46:51are
46:53Africana or Africa relates you to land
46:57history and
46:59culture end
47:01quote Clark is one of the Deans the
47:04grandfathers if you will of black
47:06studies he comes out of a tradition in
47:09the black South Union Springs Alabama
47:11Columbus
47:12Georgia somebody told him when he was a
47:14young man that the reason that we don't
47:16talk about black history because y'all
47:18y'all don't have no
47:22history somebody puts a copy of the new
47:24negro by elain lock in his hand and he
47:26turns to a to the
47:28page that has an essay by Arturo
47:32shamberg called The Negro digs up his
47:34past he says oh we got a
47:38history and so he hops on a
47:41train he a had no
47:46ticket he ends up in Chicago trying to
47:48get to New
47:50York ends up in New York goes straight
47:54up town to Harlem
47:56to find Mr
47:59shamberg he says I want to study African
48:01History Mr
48:03shanberg and shamber looked at him he
48:05says you know son what you're looking
48:08for is the missing pages of European
48:11history so study the
48:17Europeans and from that moment on Clark
48:20who never got any formal training in the
48:24academy became the dean of a group of
48:27Street
48:29Scholars and they did all the
48:33work that black studies folks once you
48:35got into the academy designated as the
48:39tradition and so by the time 1968 R
48:41around John Henry Clark is like the
48:47Elder and I say that because it is
48:51extremely rare today in Black studies
48:54ironically to hear the name name John
48:56Henry
48:59Clark despite his contribution so I had
49:01to stop and say
49:04that but Turner James Turner's essay
49:07entitled African studies in epistemology
49:10a discourse in the sociology of
49:11knowledge argued that knowledge
49:13production Carri with it a universe of
49:15meaning and that one could not simply do
49:18Africana Studies by way of the selection
49:20of a topic of study related to Black
49:23issues using sociology knowledge as a
49:26way to reveal the very particular
49:28foundations of assumed objective or
49:31normative social science practices
49:33Turner fram's black studies as quote a
49:36reconstruction
49:40discipline as a synthesis of what its
49:43criticisms imply conversions with
49:46theories reviewed in the philosophic
49:48methods of its pedagogical
49:50emphases if the Reconstruction method is
49:52itself workable procedure we have in
49:56Black studies a way of arriving at new
49:58Theory end
50:00quote one had to undertake the study in
50:03Black study in a particular
50:06way so this essay opened up
50:08conversations about Theory and
50:10methodology how to approach these
50:12questions of what can be known with how
50:15they might be known that's what we mean
50:17by
50:19epistemological what can you know and
50:21how do you know
50:23it what can be known and how can it be
50:30known these considerations may seem
50:33abstract but they are absolutely
50:35foundational as situations in the coming
50:37years would prove they are deeply
50:39consequential as well Turner's essay
50:42asserted that African studies could not
50:44quote serve as an secondary appendage or
50:48an intellectual afterthought to another
50:49established discipline end quote this
50:53raised the unavoidable question of
50:54whether or not black studies could be
50:56its own
50:57discipline by the mid 1980s mfia Santi
51:00and others at Temple University were
51:02making the case for the construction of
51:04a PhD program in Africana studies and
51:08Graduate Studies of course signifi that
51:10knowledge production required
51:13disciplinarity what made Africana
51:15studies unlike the other
51:17disciplines asan
51:19recalled that quote the only
51:22way I could justify the ation of a
51:26doctoral program was that we were
51:28teaching something that was not being
51:30taught anywhere else this meant that
51:32those of who those of us who worked in
51:35the department had to commit disciplined
51:38suicide from our old doctorates and work
51:41feverishly to flesh out this new
51:43discipline that was not African-American
51:45history not African-American literature
51:47not women's studies not African-American
51:49sociology and not studies in racism end
51:54quote so afrocentricity with this
51:56methodology of centeredness became the
51:59particular approach to African studies
52:01that was
52:02adopted quickly following on the heels
52:04of the creation of the program was the
52:06first cohort of graduate students who
52:08arrived in the fall of
52:101988 so it's a curious convergence
52:12between the maturity of black studies as
52:15a PhD graning field and discipline with
52:18the study that I did on the protest of
52:231989 at Temple the project of these
52:26students was clear to advance the idea
52:29that Africana studies was a discipline
52:30and and could generate reliable
52:32standards for methodologies and
52:34paradigms for study that can be passed
52:36down and
52:36replicated this practice was what Greg
52:39Carr in his 2011 essay what black
52:41studies is not called quote an
52:43alternative
52:45epistemology an approach to
52:46understanding African African
52:48experiences that sought to quote
52:50establish academic legitimacy to the
52:52study of African people Terry Cur persa
52:56who was here at Virginia Tech helped
52:58produce much of this work his 1992 essay
53:03why he was still at
53:04Temple um afrocentrism and the
53:06Afrocentric method is a mustre essay on
53:09this
53:11topic so to elevate black study to the
53:13status of
53:15discipline Temple students had to
53:17demonstrate the salience of that
53:19practice perhaps using their PHD
53:21dissertations as models in his own
53:23dissertation car a gradu of Temple
53:26argued that dissertation quote must meet
53:29the Dual challenge of explaining the
53:31sources of his technique while
53:33simultaneously applying and adjusting
53:35that technique in the pursuit of a
53:37research
53:38question effectively becoming two
53:41dissertations in one end
53:45quote one method that is cohort in Co
53:48that his cohort inculcated is what he
53:51would call in what black studies is
53:54not
53:55the idea of translation and
53:59Recovery it required that Scholars
54:01develop skills of quote intentionally
54:04linking that series of migrations
54:06adaptations and improvisations of
54:07African people from the origins of
54:09humanity to the present integrating wave
54:11after wave of challenges and solutions
54:14to the problems of African human
54:16existence as a series of inter leak
54:18episodes of which the period of
54:20enslavement and colonialism is a very
54:22recent and very temporary set of moments
54:24in quote from there African studies
54:27might quote ask and answer the
54:30fundamental questions of human existence
54:32and to leverage Answers by drawing first
54:34on the most
54:36familiar uh sources richest the most
54:39familiar richest and most accessible
54:41deep well of Human Experience namely the
54:44one native to the cultural Arc out of
54:46which one emerges as a human being and
54:49as a
54:51custodian to the receive inscriptions of
54:53the group as as representative thinker
54:57that's a mindful if y'all want to go
54:58back to that in questions and answers we
54:59can do
55:02that this approach was given to me when
55:05I was a student at
55:07Howard and then I was invited back to
55:10solidify that tradition part of a
55:13department that includes five
55:15professors with phds in Africana studies
55:18the most of any single Department in the
55:22country while Temple pioneered this work
55:25other schools became involved in
55:27graduate study in the discipline
55:28adopting various approaches many of them
55:31controversially rely on the traditional
55:32Western disciplines as a route to that
55:35academic
55:36legitimacy this diversity of approach is
55:38thought by some to Mark the maturity of
55:40the discipline but only a conversation
55:43about the question of epistemology
55:45knowledge production and the forms and
55:47functions that that disciplines have
55:48within the larger universe of thought
55:50will resolve the questions outlined
55:53above this practice does not not have to
55:55be equated or to or associated with a
55:57single Paradigm or methodology but one
56:00cannot leave unquestioned the force of
56:02Western philosophy and the architecture
56:04of the disciplines that many of us
56:05continue to be trained in that it
56:08produces in congruities in our
56:10understanding of the world is something
56:11to be confronted especially as those
56:13disciplines are increasingly decaying
56:16through both neoliberal through the
56:17neoliberal Behemoth in the
56:20academy and their failure to truly
56:23reveal insights that students are
56:25actually
56:26seeking in most places
56:28however these contradictions are no
56:30longer raised africon of studies instead
56:32is a container for the University's
56:34diversity needs and at best at best and
56:36at worst the space that those in power
56:38are waiting on to finally
56:40die we still need Africana studies but
56:43not for many of the reasons University
56:45administr administrators might desire or
56:48claim the need for African studies is a
56:50question of intellectual
56:53Warfare to evoke the idea of Jacob
56:57KS for Sylvia winter reminds us that
57:01quote to move beyond the Western
57:04epistem that is our war
57:07now and so I'm going to move really
57:09quickly through this next part because
57:10it talks about my current Book Project
57:13um I have two current book projects this
57:15is one of them um that I'm actually
57:17writing right now and it's basically a
57:20response to these conditions that I just
57:21outlined and so it's called of black
57:24study
57:25um knowledge
57:27otherwise and it is an exploration of
57:29the way that black intellectuals and I
57:32choose four for that we've already
57:34talked about uh WB boys uh Cedric
57:37Robinson Sylvia winter and Jacob
57:41KS and I look at how they arrived at a
57:44critique of Western
57:45knowledge and
57:47so ultimately I argue that they were
57:50practicing a form of black study that
57:54needs to to at least be at the very
57:56least acknowledged but probably
57:57replicated not just in the academy but
58:00whatever black people are thinking and
58:03doing okay cuz again black study is a
58:07freedom
58:08practice so I'm going to wind to a
58:10conclusion
58:15now even if we were all kicked out of
58:19the
58:20universities even if there was a
58:23complete negation of these spaces
58:26even if we were erased from the
58:30cannon the true meaning of the work
58:33would still be what it is and what it
58:36must
58:38be the elimination of all forms of
58:42negation the imperative to survive as
58:44free
58:45peoples are
58:48Liberation black study exists here
58:51because it exists outside of
58:53here and as long as we are located in
58:56University we must remember the source
58:59of our
59:01work a genealogy of thought that is both
59:04expansive and
59:07living of this
59:09genealogy our genius is
59:14derivative and so must be our methods
59:17for knowledge
59:19production and
59:21thinking and
59:22disciplinarity this is our war now
59:25and we will win thank you all for
59:29[Music]
59:31listening that's it for Africa W now
59:33project for this week I would like to
59:35thank you for joining us today and look
59:36forward to spending time with you next
59:38week we could be reached through all
59:39your regular social media platform email
59:42Africa wnail Pro
59:44gmail.com follow us on Twitter
59:48afw l d n w p
59:51RJ Instagram Africa now
59:55access to our other media platforms can
59:57be reached through the bios of our
59:58social media I'm your host and producer
1:00:01James Pope the Africa World Nail project
1:00:03Collective consists of international
1:00:05media journalist executive producer and
1:00:07human rights activist moua munali Africa
1:00:09World project media correspondent F Anda
1:00:12senior research content contributor and
1:00:14production director Dr tasim sadiki
1:00:17senior research content contributor and
1:00:19production associate Dr Josh Meers
1:00:22associate producer and content
1:00:23contributor Dr Perry content contributor
1:00:26and filmmaker Kurt technology advisor
1:00:30Byron gray of Grey Works
1:00:32Technologies and creative directors
1:00:34International creative and artist
1:00:36designer tabasam sadiki and Judah po
1:00:39Africa World now project can be heard
1:00:41every Wednesday at 7 p.m. on wsnc NPR
1:00:44affiliate and broadcast service of
1:00:45Winston Salem State
1:00:47University programs of archive and
1:00:49available on all podcast platforms
1:00:51search Africa World Nail project until
1:00:54next week be safe be peaceful and above
1:00:57all be
1:00:59[Music]
1:01:02intelligent than the middle of my eye

About this transcript

This page contains the full transcript of of Black studies & Black study: the function of futurity in Africana studies w/ Josh Myers by Africa World Now Project Collective , generated from the public captions YouTube serves with the video. The transcript has 8,243 words across 1,453 segments, with the original timestamps preserved so you can click any line to jump to that moment in the embedded player.

What you can do with it

Use the transcript to take notes, quote the speaker, build a study guide, generate a summary with ChatGPT or Claude via the YouTube Summary tool, or export it as a timed subtitle file with YouTube to SRT. You can also re-open it in the transcriber to translate the transcript into 100+ languages.

Free YouTube transcript tool

YouTube2Text is a free YouTube transcript generator — no signup, no daily limit. Paste any YouTube link and get the full transcript instantly, with timestamps, click-to-jump, translation to 100+ languages, AI prompts for ChatGPT, Claude, and Gemini, and exports to TXT, SRT, VTT, or Markdown.