Speech by New Orleans Mayor Mitch Landrieu on monuments to Confederate leaders

Seeing beyond categories #OpenYourWorld

It's an ad. They want to sell you beer. But it also speaks to the importance of engaging with others as people. We have differences. Sometimes rather significantly. But it helps to be able to recognize and respect the other as much as possible so we can work through those differences.

A Hard Rain’s A-Gonna Fall

Amanda Petrusich of The New Yorker wrote about the 2016 Nobel Prize awards. She started this way: 

At Saturday morning’s Nobel Prize ceremony in Stockholm, after the Swedish royal anthem was played, Carl-Henrik Heldin, the chairman of the board of the Nobel Foundation, delivered a brief speech to the collected laureates and guests. King Carl XVI Gustaf, his wife, Queen Silvia, and their daughter, Crown Princess Victoria, had assembled behind him, bedecked in gloriously elaborate, heavily festooned ensembles. The air was rarified. Onstage, things were glinting. “In times like these, the Nobel Prize is important,” Heldin said. What he meant by the phrase “times like these”—that our days were dark—seemed immediately evident to everyone in the room. “Alfred Nobel wanted to reward those who have conferred the greatest benefit to mankind.”

This year's Nobel for literature was awarded to Bob Dylan. You can watch the presentation of the award here. He was not there to accept his award today, but Patti Smith accepted on his behalf (she begins singing at the 1:03 mark). In what was clearly an emotional experience for her, she stumbled. The orchestra needed to start again. She performed A Hard Rain’s A-Gonna Fall.

In "times like these," this is a very appropriate award for commentary on our shared existence.

Here are the lyrics.

A Hard Rain’s A-Gonna Fall

WRITTEN BY: BOB DYLAN

Oh, where have you been, my blue-eyed son?
Oh, where have you been, my darling young one?
I’ve stumbled on the side of twelve misty mountains
I’ve walked and I’ve crawled on six crooked highways
I’ve stepped in the middle of seven sad forests
I’ve been out in front of a dozen dead oceans
I’ve been ten thousand miles in the mouth of a graveyard
And it’s a hard, and it’s a hard, it’s a hard, and it’s a hard
And it’s a hard rain’s a-gonna fall

Oh, what did you see, my blue-eyed son?
Oh, what did you see, my darling young one?
I saw a newborn baby with wild wolves all around it
I saw a highway of diamonds with nobody on it
I saw a black branch with blood that kept drippin’
I saw a room full of men with their hammers a-bleedin’
I saw a white ladder all covered with water
I saw ten thousand talkers whose tongues were all broken
I saw guns and sharp swords in the hands of young children
And it’s a hard, and it’s a hard, it’s a hard, it’s a hard
And it’s a hard rain’s a-gonna fall

And what did you hear, my blue-eyed son?
And what did you hear, my darling young one?
I heard the sound of a thunder, it roared out a warnin’
Heard the roar of a wave that could drown the whole world
Heard one hundred drummers whose hands were a-blazin’
Heard ten thousand whisperin’ and nobody listenin’
Heard one person starve, I heard many people laughin’
Heard the song of a poet who died in the gutter
Heard the sound of a clown who cried in the alley
And it’s a hard, and it’s a hard, it’s a hard, it’s a hard
And it’s a hard rain’s a-gonna fall

Oh, who did you meet, my blue-eyed son?
Who did you meet, my darling young one?
I met a young child beside a dead pony
I met a white man who walked a black dog
I met a young woman whose body was burning
I met a young girl, she gave me a rainbow
I met one man who was wounded in love
I met another man who was wounded with hatred
And it’s a hard, it’s a hard, it’s a hard, it’s a hard
It’s a hard rain’s a-gonna fall

Oh, what’ll you do now, my blue-eyed son?
Oh, what’ll you do now, my darling young one?
I’m a-goin’ back out ’fore the rain starts a-fallin’
I’ll walk to the depths of the deepest black forest
Where the people are many and their hands are all empty
Where the pellets of poison are flooding their waters
Where the home in the valley meets the damp dirty prison
Where the executioner’s face is always well hidden
Where hunger is ugly, where souls are forgotten
Where black is the color, where none is the number
And I’ll tell it and think it and speak it and breathe it
And reflect it from the mountain so all souls can see it
Then I’ll stand on the ocean until I start sinkin’
But I’ll know my song well before I start singin’
And it’s a hard, it’s a hard, it’s a hard, it’s a hard
It’s a hard rain’s a-gonna fall

Copyright © 1963 by Warner Bros. Inc.; renewed 1991 by Special Rider Music

Bubbles

It has been nearly four years since I've done anything with this blog. In many regards, it feels like a vestige tail from a digital animal long gone. Yet, here it is. And it is particularly because it is something that feels out of place that I would like to start using this more.

Since I last did anything here, I've become more active via Facebook and Twitter. I've written academic articles and am working on a number of projects that get at the heart of the types of questions I want to explore professionally. I hope to outline some of that work here in the future. So this is a reintroduction of sorts. While I will continue to write, post, and engage through various media, it seems like a step back from the always immediate and ever-present cycle of news.

I realize that, in my own little way, I contribute to the constant process of refreshing of News Feeds and the like. It makes me think of one of my favorite lines from a writer that I should turn to more often than I have in recent years. This is the first of two points I want to make.

In an essay published in Faith and Violence: Christian Teaching and Christian Practice, Thomas Merton has an amazingly timely and insightful remark that I often think of when I'm finding myself consumed by "news," particularly the immediate and round-the-clock process we now see through uncritical eyes. Here is Merton's quote:

What was on TV? I have watched TV twice in my life. I am frankly not terribly interested in TV anyway. Certainly I do not pretend that by simply refusing to keep up with the latest news I am therefore unaffected by what goes on, or free of it all. Certainly events happen and they affect me as they do other people. It is important for me to know about them too: but I refrain from trying to know them in their fresh condition as “news.” When they reach me they have become slightly stale. I eat the same tragedies as others, but in the form of tasteless crusts. The news reaches me in the long run through books and magazines, and no longer as a stimulant. Living without news is like living without cigarettes (another peculiarity of the monastic life). The need for this habitual indulgence quickly disappears. So, when you hear news without the “need” to hear it, it treats you differently. And you treat it differently too. 

This leads to my second point: not only might we be well-served to step back a bit, but we would also seemingly benefit from speaking and engaging with others unlike ourselves. As we know from the "blue" and "red" feeds that shape our lives, and this great SNL skit below, we largely live in our own bubbles and (mostly) like it that way.

John Oliver has also done a great job pointing out, in more detail, our bubbles.

I argue that we can and should engage with those around us, particularly those who don't share our political views. A recent story in the Manhattan Mercury about my work spells this out a bit more. I made a similar point in a USA Today interview: we can't scapegoat or honestly clump everyone who doesn't agree with me into some category, as easy or as comforting as that might be.

“This racial stuff to me is BS and I’m tired of hearing it. I have it made because I’m a white male? I’m prejudiced? That shit is long ago." pic.twitter.com/s6X6imuKfQ

— Brandon Stanton (@humansofny) November 20, 2016

So what is to be done? Here are some interesting/thoughtful/provocative links to help us see beyond our bubbles.

• http://www.nytimes.com/2016/11/20/opinion/sunday/the-end-of-identity-liberalism.html 
• https://lareviewofbooks.org/article/two-bubbles-unrealism-learning-tragedy-trump/#!
• http://thefederalist.com/2016/11/18/liberals-should-stop-ranting-and-seek-out-silent-trump-voters-like-me/

I hope to, with some regularity, write here rather than always posting and sharing via Twitter and Facebook. You're welcome and encouraged to follow here. You can sign up for RSS, but I will also make these posts available through other media. But as Merton helpfully reminds me, there is a benefit to stepping back. I am easily consumed by information, but I'm not always sure it's helpful. I'm going to try to do my part make sense of our work, not only through the algorithm Facebook thinks I want but through a more critical perspective and one that is open to others.

A Groundswell and a Desire for Something More

During the last number of days, the response to the closing of the Department of Education here at Cornell University has been something to behold. A groundswell is taking place, not simply emerging from those within the department, but also from outside of it. There is a growing community of students--both undergraduate and graduate--who recognize the tremendous loss that is occurring with the closure of the department and the loss of the institutional home for education here at Cornell.

Without a unified approach (although we're quickly trying to coalesce our energy), groups and individuals have been reaching out to the administration within CALS asking fundamental questions about what the loss of the Department of Education means for both the college as well as the university. There is, to quote one of the students from outside of the Department of Education, a need to recognize that the response to what's taking place deals with more than simply the department. He writes:

"it became clear that we were not grieving over the loss of the departmental edifice; we rather fear the loss of a forum; a free space in which to question the purpose of our education and coactively develop ourselves into the reflective practitioners we seek to be."

 With individuals and groups coming together, there is desire to try to engage a broader cross-section of the Cornell community as well as those beyond this campus who recognize and want to raise attention to what is taking place. For an institution such as Cornell to close the Department of Education speaks volumes to what is valued and what is expendable. There is no doubt that the precipice we face was brought on by the economic climate which has pushed many higher education institutions to question what they can and cannot support. This has been especially true for public higher education and land grant universities. So where do we go from here?

A number of graduate students who are concerned about the future of a space for educational discourse and questioning have recognized that we must be the ones who do something. We cannot, in good conscience, stand on the sidelines and let this issue simply become a forgotten headline.

A website, Cornell Education Matters, is serving as a hub for information and resources for those concerned with the future study of education here at Cornell. From the cornelleducation.info website, we also have a Google Group which enables individuals to sign up to receive emails about what's going on. Additionally, we have created a Facebook Page which will allow us to share information with one another as well as to gain broader support for what we are trying to do. We are doing all we can to connect people and share information about what's going on.

We have learned that the Department of Education will be able to meet with Associate Dean Max Pfeffer  on Thursday, November 4th at 5:00pm. Just to make this clear...

On Thursday, November 4th at 5:00pm, there will be a very important meeting with CALS administrators and we need as many people as possible to be there to show support for the study of education at Cornell University. 

The location is yet to be determined, we would want to let everyone know that we're encouraging as many people as possible to come to this meeting to show support for the study of education at Cornell. The physical presence of concerned individuals is a very powerful way to demonstrate the extent to which the Cornell community (as well as those beyond) cares about what's taking place.

President Skorton has called for the hiring of new faculty members humanities. The article in the Cornell Chronicle notes that,

"Far from being irrelevant in the digital age, the arts and humanities not only teach the basic skills of critical and contextual thinking, communication and ethics but also have value as disciplines of research and critical analysis in their own right. And on a fundamental level, they teach us what it means to be human, he said." 

This comment is something I wholeheartedly agree with, and I would argue that much of what takes places within the field of education asks these deeply important questions about what it means to be a person in today's world. I would argue that the college and university administration have failed in understanding what it is that happens within the Department of Education. If they knew, they wouldn't be closing it down. Education is much more than simply teacher preparation (and by no means am I demeaning teacher education). What I mean to say is that education engages questions about what it means to be a citizen in communities, states, or the world. There is serious engagement with some of the most important questions about who we are and how we might live with one another in the future.

Stay tuned and stay in touch. This is a tremendous opportunity for those of us at Cornell and those at other universities and colleges to ask deep, fundamental questions about what higher education means today in our democracy. This is an extraordinarily important question for public higher education. Education is more than the dissemination of information. The support for a forum in which faculty and students might engage in discussion about what education means only highlights the need to further engage one another about what it is that these institutions of higher education are doing and how.

Relationships and Time: Necessities of a Movement

The familiar scene of the
oratory powers of MLK. 

The civil rights movement can sometimes --often times-- be truncated and abbreviated. "One day, a nice old lady, Rosa Parks, sat down on a buss and got arrested. The next day, Martin Luther King, Jr. stood up, and the Montgomery bus boycott followed. And sometime later, King delivered his famous 'I Have a Dream' speech and segregation was over" (p. xiv).

What we lose when we only look to the familiar characters is the commitment that thousands of individuals made to walking from house to house and talking with people about their rights as citizens of the United States. The organizing tradition within the civil rights movement in the mid-twentieth century is an important but oft forgotten piece of the long and rich history of the struggle for justice and rights for African-Americans. This aspect of the freedom struggle doesn't make it into textbooks, unless it's a brief mention on the way to highlighting the leaders of the movement. It is difficult to travel in this country without seeing MLK's name. The belief that the movement began in the 1960s misses the struggles and work done by many, taking place years earlier. 

A much less familiar photo of
Septima Clark and the Citizenship Schools.

Mention the "I Have a Dream" speech and we hear about children being judged on their character and not by the color of their skin. We know this story. We can hear King's voice and the crowd in D.C. when these words are uttered. But what happens when we mention SNCC or Citizenship Schools? The movement was composed of many individuals who were committed to the long road that needed to be traveled in order to transform the realities of African-Americans being marginalized, disrespected, and intimidated by Whites, as well as being brutally injured and killed. The struggle for freedom in the South, especially in Mississippi, brought together people who were committed to taking the time to establish relationships with African-Americans with the hopes that they would do their part in registering to vote as well as become members of the movement themselves. 

The difficult work of meeting with
citizens when no one seems to care.

The movement never would have been if it was only boycott and marches. Much of the work was unglamorous and quite dangerous. People walked door-to-door talking with people about how they might help realize the belief that we are all citizens and that we have rights because of that belief in what citizenship constitutes. 

Learning about this other story of the civil rights movement forces us to rethink what it was that took place half a century ago in the United States. Additionally, it forces us to rethink social movements today. It seems to me that if we acknowledge and learn from the freedom struggle as experienced by the many nameless individuals who shaped the movement long before Parks and King, we might address some of the pressing challenges we face today when it comes to discrimination and division in this country and in the world. Change didn't come overnight then and it surely won't now.

Below is a video that captures a sense of the struggle for respect and freedom in the South.