Speaking at a Harvard forum on Monday, Cornel West complained about the widespread acceptance of "mediocre leaders" in the black community. West, a professor of Afro-American Studies, sees excessive elitism and insufficient self-criticism among the current black leadership. He urges American blacks to ditch their current crop of spokesmen in favor of a new "collective" leadership.
West could not be more right in his diagnosis, or wrong in his prescription. The inadequacy of the current black leadership—from poverty pimps like Jesse Jackson, to racists like Louis Farrakhan, to Clinton shills like Maxine Waters—is undeniable. But collectivism, and the very concept of choosing "leaders" on the basis of skin color and not ideas, is the cause of the problem, not its solution. If anything, West’s call for a collective body to make decisions and deliberate on behalf of the black community would result only in an oppressive race-based ideological orthodoxy. West’s analysis rests on the assumption that the needs of blacks are fundamentally different than those of everyone else, which is not the case. Throughout American history, for citizens of all ethnicities and races, the path to success has been found through economic liberty, education, hard work, and strong families. Blacks, like all other Americans, need leaders who emphasize this tried-and-true formula, not demagogues who dwell on the failed theories of racial solidarity and collectivism. Cornel West wants a new black leadership—but only one that says the same old thing.
Radicals Cement Their Grip
Several universities now offer Ph.D. programs in women’s studies, the logical culmination of a disturbing trend in academia that places politically correct scholarship above the pursuit of learning and truth. These programs are sometimes unmasked as "feminist studies," but regardless of the moniker, they are almost always more about promoting a political agenda than advancing academic discourse or teaching students anything useful. The Chronicle of Higher Education reports that these advanced degrees usually concentrate on such important scholastic topics as "the interaction of social conditions such as class, ethnicity, race, sexualities, and national identity with gender," or "how oppressive systems work and can be changed."
The bright news, however, is that the women’s-studies machine is cranking out far too many graduates for the available academic openings. At Emory University, for example, of eight graduates with a Ph.D. in Women’s Studies, only two have tenure-track jobs. Like so many academics, they are ground into the dust by the one philosophy they cannot bear to see in action—the free market.
Freedom of Religion Heads South?
It’s Christmastime in Somerset, Massachusetts—but you wouldn’t know it. Thanks to the ACLU and resident atheist Gil Amancio, the nativity scene proudly displayed since 1938 outside the town police and fire station will never again see the light of day. Federal Judge Richard Stearns, who seemingly understands the Constitution as well as he does the spirit of Christmas, struck down the crèche as a violation of the First Amendment.
Thankfully Fidel Castro has seemingly adopted a more liberal attitude toward the expression of religious faith. Cuba has permanently reinstated the Christmas holiday, which it first canceled in 1969.