The Intellectuals We Abandon
The late political philosopher Sheldon Wolin explicated the mechanisms of control and manipulation used by the powerful But those who most need to read his work have been left in darkness by an academy that has turned its back on the oppressed and caters to the elites (Pictured, Wolin and James Baldwin, right) The late political philosopher Sheldon Wolin explicated the mechanisms of control and manipulation used by the powerful).
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One of the many cruelties of corporate capitalism is that it has abandoned the poor and, among them, the gifted intellectuals I teach. And even when they do manage to climb out of the deep black hole we have constructed for them, even when they are able to achieve academic success, they remain stigmatized as poor men and women of color with a prison record. The abject failure to provide an education to the poor, to nurture this potential and these intellectuals—and by this I do not mean sitting on a scholarship committee but going to teach in the internal colonies and the prisons where our poor are trapped—is one of the most damning marks on academia.
One of my students, Boris Franklin, is here today. He is currently an honors student at Rutgers. I was waiting for him, with his mother, when he walked out of the prison gate after being incarcerated for 11 years. His first words to me—remember he had just spent more than a decade in a cage—were “I have to rebuild my library.” He had left 100 books behind in the prison.
Or take the case of our friend Walter Fortson, who left prison to graduate magna cum laude from Rutgers, won the university’s first Harry S. Truman Scholarship in more than 10 years and received his Master of Philosophy in criminology from the University of Cambridge. But Walter, like Boris, like all my students, remains condemned in a criminal caste system, struggling with the poverty engendered by globalization, deindustrialization and neoliberalism and damned by white supremacy. Walter, who just got his final eviction notice, is about to take a course to become a truck driver. Boris, who knows what is coming, is making sure he will graduate with a contractor’s license. We live in a despotism where Jean Valjean is again reviled, hunted and persecuted.
A couple of weeks ago I was in the windowless room of a halfway house in Trenton, meeting with one of my students, Ron Pierce, who is being released after 31 years in prison. When you leave prison it is the great giveaway. The few items in your cell—sneakers, sweatsuits, plastic bins, water bottles, food and books—cannot be taken with you. You walk out with only what you can carry. A halfway house official sat in on our conversation. When I was informed our two hours were up, I hugged Ron goodbye.
“Could you bring anything out with you?” I asked.
“Yes,” he said. “ ‘Politics and Vision.’ ”
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Meet the scholars-for-hire who preach solidarity in service of a software company with a long and sordid record of collaboration.
Campus leaders vow reforms, but many say it’s a long road.
As a generation of leaders crowds onto the world stage with its own bold geopolitical visions, it's important to trace the roots of the elusive term "geopolitics."
African-American historian Nell Painter's inspiring and captivating memoir tells of her going to art school at age 64 after a brilliant academic career.
When we glom on to political labels and attach ourselves to partisan ideologies, we allow the establishment to shatter us into encampments.
The danger we face does not come, in the end, from Trump and his malignant cabal. It comes from severely weakened and corrupted democratic institutions.
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