Preface-Chapter 4 Countdown Paper Race Matters

5. Sentences Summarizing the Main Idea
In Race Matters, Cornel West hits hard in the hearts and pride of the American people, but especially of African Americans in power. Too many, he says, have lost sight of what is important and focus solely on success and achievement for themselves, not for the black community, let alone for American as a whole. To better the nation and to aid the black America, there must be black leaders who inspire change and have the backbone to speak out about cultural democracy and work to instill a framework of moral reasoning among black America so as not to accept unqualified blacks placed into power simply out of fear of speaking against another African American.

4. Quotations
1. “Similarly, conservatives blame the “problems” on black people themselves – and thereby render black social misery invisible or unworthy of public attention” (6).
2. “The collapse of meaning in life – the eclipse of hope and absence of love of self and others, the breakdown of family and neighborhood bonds – leads to the social deracination and cultural denudement of urban dwellers, especially children” (9).
3. “First, we must acknowledge that structures and behavior are inseparable, that institutions and values go hand in hand” (18).
4. “ But there is always a chance for conversion – a chance for people to believe that there is hope for the future and a meaning to struggle” (29).

3. Key Terms
1. Afrocentrism – “a contemporary species of black nationalism, is a gallant yet misguided attempt to define an African identity in a white society to be hostile” (7).
2.Nihilism – “the lives experience of coping with a life of horrifying meaninglessness, hopelessness, and (most important) lovelessness” (23).
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2. Connections
1. “Hence, rhetoric becomes a substitute for analysis, stimulatory rapping a replacement for serious reading, and uncreative publications an expression of existential catharsis” (65).
* This quote reminded me of so many aspects of life, not just black America. As far back as middle school student council elections, candidates were not chosen based upon their morals or the content of their speech, but by their composure and confidence on stage along with the delivery of their speech. Similarly, America chooses candidates today. I am not necessarily for or against President Obama, but I believe a large part of the reason that he was chosen is because he extremely talented at speech delivery and he is a clean-cut, seemingly well-to-do African American figure. Though he has performed well so far as the President, I do not believe that these are proper conditions under which to choose a leader of our country. I feel that West hits the nail on the head when he discusses the need for framework involving the morals of the people, not only their skin color, otherwise we are all just as wrong as the people who instilled the Jim Crow laws.
2. “But it must be recognized that the nihilistic threat contributes to criminal behavior. It is a threat that feeds on poverty and shattered cultural institutions and grows more powerful as the armors to ward against it are weakened” (25).
* Every day as I work with children of which most are from the projects of Waco, I see the effect that poverty has on their lives. Sure, they do not get the toys they want, the clothes they want, etc. and that is heartbreaking enough. More wrenching to the soul, however, is the lack of good influences in their lives. There is a third grade boy who has been suspended and put in in-school suspension for not only sending other elementary school-aged girls inappropriate text messages, but also for grabbing these girls inappropriately at school and telling other students that they perform inappropriate acts with him. These are third graders. These girls have no safe place because a young boy’s lack of cultural institution and positive support in his life has set him up to lead a path of destruction in not only others’ lives, but his own as well.

1. Question
a. In your classroom, how would you handle finding present-day role models for your non-white students? What would the requirements be?