Black Education and White Liberalism

...Technical skill is always an important thing to have...

...I should think that you are far more lacking in these qualities, for you have nothing but disdain for your own cultural and intellectual tradition...

...I very much fear we see the tendency in this squalid enterprise...

...Let me assure you, epistemology is a veritable minefield of ancillary questions: If real, is it also true...

...Or worse, what rage must follow these violations of the little worlds of Ben Hernandez and John Has-Many-Horses and Joyce Lee and Johnny Old-Coyote...

...Certainly you should know more about those needs and aspirations than I do...

...Techne—or "know-how," while highly prized among the Greeks, was rarely confused with either knowledge (gnosis)—or wisdom (sophia), both of which were infinitely more valuable than techne...

...indeed, much of the world's great soul food...

...Aren't "soul courses," now urged by black youth, only a combination of the art, poetry, music, and literature of black people cast in the mold of the American black experience...

...These remarkably durable human questions have given rise to three great areas of human inquiry...

...Despite your entreaties, I shall continue to advocate those means by which Negroes can obtain the educational skills, as well as the political and economic power, that will enable them to achieve equality within the context of American society...

...Aren't reality and truth one...

...What sense of pride, of cultural legacy, of self-confidence accrues to a black child after 12 years in the public schools of Montgomery, Alabama or Shreveport, Louisiana...

...Or is the "real world" only the world—objective and subjective—which the American marketing-militaryindustrial Establishment has fashioned...

...What would nurture a soul, Mr...

...Generally, questions about "reality" fall to the ontologists for response...

...Since I am persuaded that our current national tragedy reflects the eclipse of "liberal learning" and the bankruptcy of liberal knowledge in the nation, I am compelled to radically disagree with you about (1) the value of "soul courses" and, (2) their relevance to the "real world...

...And in America, alas, they look toward the Negro...

...It was not out of any failure to perceive the nature of the "real world" that I spent 28 months in a Federal penitentiary for my pacifist beliefs, or 30 days on a chain-gang in North Carolina for trying to integrate a bus, or that I was arrested on 21 other occasions for opposing injustice...

...Commonly, philosophy 101 attempts to reveal the complex and intimate relationship between "the real" and "the true...

...Let me be quite explicit...

...You, too, can get in trouble...

...Drawing unwittingly upon our country's racist heritage, they place the Negro in the role of the natural man come to revive the juices of white civilization...

...I have established that Mr...

...This is the essence of thought control in a totalitarian state...

...The issue is the intimidation by government of a private citizen because of his holding disapproved opinions...

...Your remarks, among other things, strike at the very heart of "liberal education...

...both the soft and hard sciences are stalwarts in the house of ontology...

...These people suffer from a sense of dislocation and disposes-sion which has given rise to a political orientation that Arnold Toynbee has called "subjective proletarianism...

...Alas, of course it is...

...One can be aware that "the tears of children are as 'real' as the rock of Gibraltar" without indulging in sentimentality and self-righteousness...

...Part of our problem nowadays stems from our careless use of language on the one hand, and our use of pseudo-technical language on the other hand...

...The "real world...

...Best, Bayard Rustin Executive Director A. Philip Randolph Institute Thomas A. Billings June 16, 1969 TO: UPWARD BOUND Project Directors and Consultants FROM: Thomas A. Billings Director, Project UPWARD BOUND an open letter to bayard rustin As a long-time admirer of yours, I am hesitant about challenging any of your remarks regarding the needs and aspirations of black youth in America...

...His letter is as disrespectful to President Nixon, as it is libelous of you...

...Most of them are just tired of the champagne music of Lawrence Welk and the silly charade of manliness staged by America's business elite...

...What is true...

...Sincerely, Bayard Rustin Executive Director A. Philip Randolph Institute Daniel P. Moynihan September 30, 1969 Dear Bayard: I enclose a letter being sent to all Upward Bound directors and consultants by Mr...

...And their hopes are real, and their dreams and tears...

...They must look figuratively to the East, to African and Asiatic culture, which has always represented in Western consciousness the subjective urges of man, that which is primitive, irrational, vital...

...And I shall oppose those strategies, whether motivated out of the desire to oppress or to patronize, which can only perpetuate and compound the injustices committed against black people in this nation...

...Techne was techne—craftsmanship, skill, technique, an important attribute in the work-a-day world...

...Most of them are sick to death of political chicanery, racial bigotry, religious hypocrisy, international looting and piracy disguised as the "national interest...

...Isn't that art and that poetry and that music and that literature "real" and hasn't the black experience in America been "real...

...Is the "real world" an invention or a discovery...

...If so, to whom...

...If it is not true and good, do you suppose "soul courses" would help it become not only "real," but "true" and "good," or is it possible that truth and goodness have no meaning in the "real world...

...Obviously, at last we have it: "X has no meaning in the 'real world.' " What else, Mr...

...Are there modes of "reality...

...What is the effect on a child's spirit when he finds that the language spoken in his home, the language of his mother's lullabies and his father's pride, is illegal, not the language spoken in the "real world...

...Rustin, is that the "real world...

...But not forever...

...Rustin, let me point out that there have been three great problems—or questions— or branches of philosophy...

...A last point...

...Rustin, men on this planet have been grappling with these great prime questions...

...However, you and I know that the exchange is rarely an equal one...

...Is an idea "real...

...Thomas A. Billings Director, Project Upward Bound Office of Economic Opportunity Washington, D.C...

...Because I want you to understand what I hope to say about the "real world," Mr...

...What is good...

...A white man half your age should probably remain silent when you speak on racial matters...

...Was Martin Luther King's dream real...

...Negroes have been used and exploited in many ways by white Americans, but it is only recently that they have been asked to satisfy the masochistic craving of disenchanted liberals for flagellation and rejection...

...they are not at all sure that it is the world in which they want to live and work...

...I think that I could argree with you that "soul courses" aren't going to be worth a dime in that world...

...I was startled, therefore, by the suddenness with which you closed out the dialogue and bolted the door of inquiry and revision...

...It included art and poetry and drama...

...Since you are a liberal, I think this remark betrays an exquisite form of self-contempt, a self-contempt that is not entirely unrelated to the extraordinary guilt with which liberals like yourself are reacting to our racial crisis...

...Billings became Deputy Project Manager of the Upward Bound Program in April 1967 and shortly thereafter became Project Manager, which post he left on June 15, 1969, on the occasion of the transfer of the program from oeo to hew...

...Most of them want desperately to believe in the human capacities of labor and intelligence and compassion...

...If not, does the "real world" depend upon human interpretation...

...Dear Pat: Enclosed is an "Open Letter" to me written by Thomas A. Billings, the Director of Upward Bound, and my reply...

...Sincerely, Daniel P. Moynihan Assistant to the President Mr...

...Have Americans become so accustomed to seeing government abusing the rights of individuals and intimidating the recipients of government benefactions...

...Rustin, that our young people are saying must go...

...Bayard Rustin Executive Director A. Philip Randolph Institute 260 Park Avenue South New York, N. Y. 10010...

...Are all the attributes and delights of the human soul equally untenable in "the real world...

...Rumsfeld's letter will distribute your reply to all those who received the original letter from Billings...

...Isn't all poetry and all art and all music and all literature only the expression of a people's life experience whether it's the art and poetry and music and literature of American blacks or the art, poetry, music and literature of American Celts, Buriat Mongolians, Berber Tribesmen, Basque Shepherds, Mexican Villagers, Catholic Bavarians, Irish Republicans, Vietnamese Nationals, Buddhist Monks, Japanese Fishermen, Islandic Eskimos, Javanese Mountainmen, or Suburban Anglo-Saxon Executives...

...Many of them—and God bless them for it—long for a better world, a more responsible world, a more humane world, a world in which the tears of children are as "real" as the rock of Gibraltar and ever much more alarming than the dips in the Dow-Jones Industrial Average...

...I trust you will send my reply to all the Upward Bound Project Directors and Consultants...

...This is, of course, in response to your letter to me of August 12 reporting the incredible and intolerable behavior of the former Director of Upward Bound, and enclosing a reply by you to the attack which he had addressed to that group...

...But the Greek world was more than the work-a-day world...

...A second aspect to the problem is relevant here...

...For you not to know this would be an unbearable irony, Mr...

...Is reality general, objective and universal or is it specific, subjective, and particular...

...Is the world of "ought" as "real" as the world of "is...

...If I understand anything about American youths it is that many of them are deeply unhappy about the "real world...

...20506 Dear Mr...

...Rustin—or art or dance or drama...

...No persons of responsibility in the present Administration even knew of the letter...

...Donald] Rumsfeld...

...Those who express thoughts disapproved of by those who control the government machinery are vilified and defamed...

...The profound questions of "good" and "evil" appear here, inextricably bound up with questions about the "real" and the "true," that is, bound up with ontology and epistemology...

...What sense of pride, of cultural legacy, of self-confidence accrues to a North Cheyenne child after 12 years in the public schools of Billings, Montana...

...Rustin, and a tragic paradox...

...The scientific method is a natural outgrowth of man's concern for the "real world...

...that, in other words, which they have repressed...

...If liberalism is bankrupt and in decline as you maintain, if it lacks any revitalizing tradition and system of values, then it follows that liberals must look beyond themselves for a new world view, a new source of vitality...

...What place has poetry in your "real world," Mr...

...Thus it is not surprising that this lumpenintelligentsia would react with unusual enthusiasm to the position of black nationalists, would romanticize their demands for separatism and self-determination, and would identify these demands as the position of the "black community," when, in fact, they represent the views of a small minority of Negroes...

...There is today a legitimate and heated debate going on within the Negro community between separatists and integrationists...

...If you should for any reason wish to make my letter public, do not hesitate to do so...

...But that, of course, is small consolation...

...The letter was written and mailed at government expense, and sent to persons who in one form or another are recipients of public monies disbursed by the same public official...

...Rustin, but soul courses, i. e., instruction...

...As you will be the first to agree, the injury done you has nothing to do with the Tightness or wrongness of your views...

...Billings: I found your open letter to me opposing my position on separatist black studies very interesting—not for anything it had to say about black studies or higher education, but for what it revealed about your own dilemma and by extension, the dilemma of other similarly situated white liberals...

...Let me remind you that my position in this debate derives from my experience as a black man in America (not as a "Suburban Anglo-Saxon Executive"), from my knowledge that separatism historically and presently for Negroes has been indistinguishable from inequality, exploitation and poverty, and that despite all the romantic rhetoric used to make it appear respectable, separatism shall continue to be immoral and degrading...

...And their anger...

...It's this world, Mr...

...Billings' letter is dated a day after his resignation from the government, and that it was sent without the knowledge of his superiors in the Office of Economic Opportunity...

...The fact remains that a government official, on stationery of the Executive Office of the President, directed an extended personal attack against a private citizen because of views expressed by that citizen on public issues...

...For at least 5,000 years, Mr...

...But before I get into a conversation with you about the "real world," Mr...

...You are convinced "that our current national tragedy reflects the eclipse of 'liberal learning' and the bankruptcy of liberal knowledge in the nation...

...An outrageous charge has been made and distributed, a reply is distributed in return...

...Is it possible that souls have no place in the "real world...

...What mangling of the spirit must come, what breakage of the heart must follow the "realization," i.e., the desperate assimilation into the "real world" of these troubled centers of little worlds...

...Are social "realities" immutably decreed by the gods, or are they products of human imagination, hence subject to human revision...

...It is a romantic form of politics rooted in guilt, acutely sensitive to problems concerning individuality and identity, and characterized by a peculiar combination of self-deprecation and snobbish patronization...

...What is the effect on a child's spirit when the sounds and sights and loves and hopes of his little world are systematically excluded from the "real world...

...Questions about "truth" gave rise to epistemology or, put another way, to that branch of philosophy which explores human comprehension of "the real," an inquiry into how man learns about "the real...

...others who might be so tempted are warned of the consequences in the most vulgar terms...

...Rustin, as real as General Motors and Wall Street and Howard Hughes and American Airlines and Richard Nixon and J. Edgar Hoover and the United Fruit Company...

...I do not know which development appalls me more: that Billings sent the letter, or that no Project Upward Director has apparently seen fit to protest it...

...It is clear to me that you have been done an intolerable injury by an official of the United States government...

...What sense of pride, of cultural legacy, of self-confidence accrues to a Chicano child after 12 years in the public schools of El Paso, Texas...

...How long has it been, Mr...

...I recall from my youth the observaton that if fascism should ever come to the United States it would be in the guise of anti-fascism...

...There is a psychological phenomenon occurring today among increasing numbers of affluent highly-educated Americans like yourself that has been variously described as anomie, alienation, identity crisis...

...Rustin, beyond "soul courses," have [sic] "no meaning in the real world...

...Can something be true, but not real...

...The third great question—What is good?—gave rise to ethics, the consideration of human (interpersonal) relationships...

...If so, is it at the same time "true" and "good...

...It should be clear from my letter how much I have been troubled by this event...

...But, Mr...

...Rustin, I will avoid most of the technical language of philosophy normally connected with discussions of this sort...

...Bayard Rustin August 12, 1969 Mr...

...Only among slaves was the work-a-day world the whole world, the "real world...

...Billings was clearly not appointed by this Administration...

...I have requested that he send my letter to the Upward Bound Project Directors and Consultants who have also received his original letter...

...But your recent remarks regarding "soul courses" and the "real world" went infinitely beyond mere instruction to black youth...

...My God, has it really come to that...

...If you remove the human subject, does reality have "meaning...

...In the nature of the situation this is, I suppose, all that can be done...

...You are certainly free to take sides in this debate, even if in the process you must patronizingly indicate to Negroes their need for a "sense of pride, of cultural legacy, of self-confidence...

...It is not a new debate, but one that has recurred repeatedly in the history of black Americans, particularly during periods of political reaction when many Negroes, out of despair, want to withdraw from the mainstream of our society...

...As "real" as a rock...

...Our young are part of the "real world," too, Mr...

...Rustin, since you took a long, hard look at the curriculum in the schools of America...

...The three great questions have been: What is real...