I’m attending the much-anticipated conference at the University of Memphis this weekend, “The Obama Phenomenon: Race and Political Discourse in the United States Today.” The keynote address is this evening and is being delivered by Rev. Jeremiah Wright. Our local news broadcasts have done all they could in the past week to stir up controversy…
Read MoreOver at anotherpanacea, there’s a really fascinating and mature consideration of what AnPan calls “Critique in the Age of Hope.” The basic concern underlying AnPan’s essay, as I read it, is that the general ethos of good-will and hope that has accompanied President Obama into the White House might find its expression in an unwitting…
Read MoreLast night, I posted the transcript and some video clips of Obama’s 2009 State of the Union Address. Here are my thoughts on the speech: The Tone:Perfect. We all expected that President Hope would sound strong and inspiring last night, that he would steer clear of fear and pessimism, that he would rally the troops……
Read MoreIt snowed yesterday in Memphis. Not “real” snow, just some flurries in the air, but it added an unreal sparkle to the morning… a morning in which so many other things seemed so unreal. I watched the Inauguration ceremonies in our campus pub, surrounded by rapt colleagues and students. People cheered and clapped and laughed,…
Read MoreAn excerpt from Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr’s “I Have A Dream” address to the people assembled on the Washington Mall, August 28, 1963. …In a sense we have come to our nation’s capital to cash a check. When the architects of our republic wrote the magnificent words of the Constitution and the Declaration of…
Read MoreJames Baldwin, a 20th C. African-American novelist and parrhesiastes, wrote a letter to his nephew in 1963– on the 100th anniversary of the Emancipation— that was later published under the title My Dungeon Shook. In that letter, Baldwin tried to persuade his young nephew not to fall prey to the more insidious temptations of assimilation,…
Read MoreWith only 8 more days to go before the Inauguration, Slate magazine (in collaboration with MixedInk) has invited us, the people, to help write Obama’s inaugural address. The way it works is as follows: when you click on this link, you will be taken to a site where you can begin writing your own speech….
Read MoreThis semster I’m teaching a “Philosophy of Race” course that meets on Tuesdays/Thursdays from 12:30-1:45 in the afternoon… which means we will be meeting in the middle of the Obama inauguration next week! I’m debating whether or not to cancel class, or at least to forego my syllabus schedule (would’ve been Bernier and Kant) in…
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