A conversation about race

WILLIAMS:  I want to bring in someone tonight who is not governed by a set of rules like that.  Professor Carr, where are you?

UNIDENTIFIED MALE:  These are your people back here.

GREGORY CARR, HOWARD UNIVERSITY:  Brian, before - I should say, on behalf of the staff, the faculty, the students of Howard University, we want to welcome you all.  I think that's probably one of the things that we want to push the envelope about a little bit.  The fact that we're not represented on the stage is another 800 pound gorilla, but I'm sure we're going to get to that, but please ...

WILLIAMS:  Forgive me, professor.  I wanted to tell our viewing audience, Professor Carr, professor of Afro-American studies here at Howard as you might ...

CARR:  All right, we're in the conversation now.  Let's see what he's going to ask.  Go ahead, Brian.

WILLIAMS:  I wanted to hear your slice in the role of education in the conversation we are having here from your perspective at Howard University.

CARR:  Sure, Brian.  I think - first of all, I am deeply disturbed by something that is very fundamental.  You are all on a stage that has been occupied for the last several decades by some of the most important human beings on the planet.  Every day on the campus we convene a conversation with African people from around the world and this isn't an exclusively black institution, so we have folks from all over Europe, the United States, as well.

That conversation, however, does not revolve around an axis of black pathology.  In other words, a conversation about race is one thing.  But not just to help - the culture of African people is somehow pathological.  I knew my father, this brother here, Brother Phoenix who helped make the film, knew his as well.  He went to Stillman.  I went to Tennessee State.  We work in black institutions.  Those institutions survived the enslavement process.  We are extinctions of African people even as we contribute to the culture in America and every other culture in the Western Hemisphere.

I guess what I'm saying is part of the education process is socialization.  With all due respect, one of the reasons why young people may pick white over black is because all the images they see, including sometimes their parents reinforce the idea that the culture that they came into is somehow pathological.  But that doesn't mean that we are.

Video   Race discussion: What's the first step? April 11: The panel discusses the social issues for African-American males and how this is changing black families. Howard University professor Gregory Carr shares his thoughts about some of what was discussed by the panel. Doc Block

I don't know what single - with all do respect, I don't know what a single parent home is.  Because if a man is not present in the physical home, there are men in the community.  In other words, what we have to understand is that we cannot continue to have this conversation about race that revolves around the axis that presumes that the culture of black people is somehow inferior because what that does is set up solutions that somehow requires us to neuter, to erase ourselves.

And last thing I'll say because I - at this moment in addition to saying that I hope as we continue this conversation you all come back to

Howard, you have an open invitation, that we might be able to occupy one of the chairs, is that - the last thing I'll say is that - and this is with all due respect to Professor Dyson and a lot of people like him is we work here every day.  We have some of the brightest minds on the planet.  One of the reasons why we convene the way we do and often under the radar in America is not, with all due respect to Tom Joyner, because we're not part of the mainstream.  What we call the mainstream.  What we call the mainstream perhaps is the Eurostream.  We are the mainstream here.

And often we can't have honest conversations in this country about race because so many of us, and by us I mean people of African descent, are spending time translating and apologizing and explaining who we are to other people rather than allowing ourselves to have an internal conversation that moves into the larger United States society and more importantly, the model of Howard University leadership for American and global community, the larger global community, because that's really where African people have always been.

Our allegiance to American and American citizenship goes without question.  We died in every war.  We fought in every struggle.  However, and Dr. King said this in the "I have a dream" speech which I called the bounced check speech because he opened that speech with, "We come to the capital of the United States with a promissory note that has been returned insufficient funds."

But Dr. King talked about going beyond national allegiances.  That's why this sister who was 97 years old said God is the payoff man.  In other words, her allegiance is to family and to a spiritual, cultural posture that transcends the American state.  Until we do that, we really can't have an honest conversation about race in the United States.

So I'll stop there and hope that you can continue.

WILLIAMS:  Thank you, doctor.  Have at it.

SOARIES:  For me as a clergyman, for me as a father, for me as a man, the most poignant moment in that film was when David A and David B took communion together.  And whether you're Christian or Jewish or Muslim, that communion reflects a transformed heart.  It reflects a humble spirit.  And the only reason the reconciliation that could occur did occur between David A and David B was because they bonded spiritually.

And when we talk about faith and we talk about values and we talk about the future and we talk about Dr. King, we're talking about transformed hearts.  There's got to be a conversion experience to go from supremacy to normalcy and to go from inferiority to power.

WILLIAMS:  Chief, where do you go, what gives you hope in the future.  What do we look to feel good?  I want to ask this to you and Kriss.  What do you go to for a positive influence these days?

LANIER:  I get positive influence from the people I interact with every day.  I see some of the most incredibly powerful people that are powerless.  There are people that I interact with every day that survive in conditions that you and I would never be able to survive in and they not only survive but they thrive.  But we need to level that playing field and a lot of those people just need one break, one opportunity to level playing field.

But the strength that they have to get where they are and survive in the way they're surviving is if we level that playing field and bring what it is that we need to bring, whether it's to the economy, leveling that playing field with social services, human services, giving them the opportunities that everybody should have.  So that they have the same opportunities everybody else has.

They will survive and they will thrive because from struggles you become strong and these are people that are strong already so I think that there's a lot of hope, we've just got to hope that we all come around as a society and our community, I think, especially our faith-based community has been very strong in pulling our community together.

But we're not there yet and I think a lot of this really is going to be about us having that conversation where it says, we're going to all work on this together, because there are people that right now if given the opportunity will pull us all in the right direction.

WILLIAMS:  Kriss.  Same question.  Where do you go to find a glass that's half full and not half empty because by nature a lot of the conversation tonight has been focusing, dwelling on the negative, the problems?

TURNER:  A lot of prayer.

Things are getting better.  They're just getting better.  I'm thrilled with the positive images that we're seeing within our own community.  This program.  I guess my concern and this is not to answer your question - this doesn't answer your question, rather, but that the people who need to see this program see this program because it's not us.

Because I think we kind of know what we're doing.  The Howard audience and - but reaching into our communities and supporting them and showing them what they can be and it - hiring more police officers is really - doesn't seem to be the key because it doesn't seem to be a deterrent to crime.

I'm just very concerned.  I don't know.  I really don't have the answer to that but I do have hope, is I think that slowly but surely things will get better because they're just going to flat line and we're just going to jump start it.

POWELL:  Let me put it this way as an activist.  I love black people but I love all people.  Part of the reason I can say that is because I travel around this country extensively and so I can't - I'm at a point in my life now where I agree with Dr. King.  You have to be rooted in love and a sense of God and life has to reflect God so if I'm in South Dakota or Idaho and a white sister or brother comes up to me or a Latino sister or bother or a native America sister or brother and they want help as well, I've got to respond to them.

But to speak to Dr. Carr's point, what I am getting at, Dr. Carr, with all due respect, is I hear you loud and clear but the thing for me and the black community is there's - I didn't use the word pathology, maybe you heard it from someone else.  What we've got to deal with is the fact that when we look in the audience of Howard University, if we look around the country at what's happening with black males, what's happening with black females, our leadership has failed us miserably across the country - across the - no, and I'm not talking about you, brother.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE:  (Inaudible)

POWELL:  Let me finish.  Let me finish my point.

WILLIAMS:  Let Kevin finish his point.

POWELL:  Here is what I am getting at.  Black people in 2008 have got to be sophisticated enough to have a critique of the largest systemic problems which we've been talking about up here but we also have some internal work to deal with.  For me, looking at the last 40 years as we're talking about Dr. King, when you look at activists, you look at intellectuals, you look at some of our ministers, not Brother Soaries, not him.  You look at some of the other folks who call themselves leaders, there has been no plan for black people in my opinion for at least the last 35, 40 years which is why we're having these conversations.

So where we've got to go in 2008 is as we have a critique of the system which we've got to keep pushing the things that Dyson said, also how we're going to begin to make sure that the sisters and brothers who went to my school Rutgers University, who go to Howard, not only graduate but are the cream of the crop in terms of intellectualism but they actually come back to the communities the way Dr. King did with his PhD at 26 years of age, at 38, 39 years of age, the last thing he did was work with working class people in Memphis, Tennessee.

So part of the challenge for us as young people who are college educated is not to get - just relish in our genius but are you going to take that genius to Anacostia in DC.  That's the key thing.

WILLIAMS:  Professor Carr?

CARR:  Kevin, I couldn't agree with you more and my mom used to say when you open your mouth, put your brains on display.  I guess what you indicated with your comments is you might be unaware of the type of work that goes on in communities.  You work every day in Brooklyn, right?

Let me finish.  What I'm saying is ...

POWELL:  Don't take it personally.  I'm talking about all of us watching in TV land.

WILLIAMS:  Where we're using time we don't have.

CARR:  I understand that.  But I'm not taking that personally as an individual.  I'm taking that personally institutionally.  What I'm saying is that this is how, this is the legacy of historically black  colleges - I understand.  But going forward and addition - no, well, I'm saying, going forward, in addition to a systemic critique, what we see is a solution being posed.

In other words, if you look at curriculum -- and I know you've got to go to commercial break.

WILLIAMS:  I want to bring both Wilsons up for a final word for a goodbye and I - I got a whole network on my shoulders here saying we've got to go to break so we can bring both - luckily, we can continue this in this hall and hopefully where you are long after this.  So Professor Carr, my everlasting apologies.

We're going to hear a final word from both David Wilsons when we continue from the great Howard University in Washington, DC.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

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