E-mail a friendEddie Glaude
original airdate March 26, 2007
Dr. Eddie Glaude has built a reputation as a gifted scholar and teacher. A founding member and Senior Fellow of the Jamestown Project, he's also an associate professor at Princeton University, with research interests that include African American religious history and its place in American public life. Glaude was mentored by Dr. Cornel West as a Princeton grad student and has written/edited several books. In a Shade of Blue: Pragmatism and the Politics of Black America is his latest.
Eddie Glaude
Tavis: Eddie Glaude, Jr. is a professor of religion at Princeton and one of a new generation of African American intellectual voices in the U.S. His latest book is called "In a Shade of Blue: Pragmatism and the Politics of Black America." He joins us tonight from New York. Professor Glaude, as always, nice to have you on the program, sir.
Professor Eddie Glaude: It's always a pleasure to dialogue with you, Brother Tavis. You're an extraordinary figure in a historic moment, brother, so I'm really honored to be here with you.
Tavis: I'm delighted to have you on the program as one of America's up and coming young Black intellectuals. Let me start by asking, before I get into the text, to that point just now how you would - if, in fact, you would - distinguish this new crop, this new class of young Black intellectuals of which you are a part, as compared with an old school set of Black intellectuals?
I don't wanna call any names, but what makes this particular generation of young Black intellectuals like you at Princeton and other names that we could call uniquely different, if anything?
Glaude: Well, we've been made possible by those who kind of blazed a trail for us. When I think of myself, I can't begin to imagine who I am as an intellectual without thinking about the amazing, the extraordinary figure of Dr. Cornel West. And everything that Dr. West represents, I stand for in the very ways in which I imagine myself as an intellectual, as a public figure advocating on behalf of the least of these.
But at the same time, I've been shaped under different conditions. I've had a different trajectory. And as a result, I think I come to problems with a different sensibility, a different temperament. And I think that different sensibility and different temperament allows me to take some of the assumptions that Doc might, for example, just hold, and subject them to critical scrutiny.
So part of what makes us unique, this post-soul crop of intellectuals, is that we can actually bring to bear critical tools, critical analyses, on the assumptions that inform what the - the work that came before us.
Tavis: One of the things - one of the rubs, shall we say, against that old school generation of Black intellectuals is that most of them, with all due respect, unlike a Cornel West that you mentioned a moment ago - they're all intellectuals, but it's one thing to have an intellect - how might I put this? It's one thing to have an intellect, another thing to have a usable intellect.
That is to say, it's one thing to be celebrated by the academy - certainly the Ivy League - but another thing for that intellect to be used in love and service to everyday people. Are there sighs that you see that your generation, this post-soul, as you call it, this post-soul generation of Black intellectuals has an intellect that can be used in the service of everyday Negroes?
Glaude: I think so, Brother Tavis, and I think it has a lot to do with what Dr. West has opened up. He, in some significant way, constitutes a hinge figure. When we think about the crop of intellectuals that came before Dr. West, we can begin to think about first, they just got entrée into higher ed, right? And then what we see is that as they gained entrée into American higher education, it's at a moment in which you see increased specialization and increased professionalization.
So they began to make their mark within their fields, within this very arcane, specialized space. What Dr. West has done is kind of reintroduce what I consider to be the generalist, right? That person who doesn't see himself as an academic, but rather sees himself or herself as an intellectual. And then not only that, he took that notion of a generalist, of seeing himself as an intellectual, and then brought it to bear on the problems of everyday, ordinary folk.
And then he gave birth to a new generation of Black intellectuals. In fact, he allowed us in some cases to get paid doing what we do. (Laughter.) And so part of what we have to do is to begin to see that he's ushered in a new moment: a moment that we've stepped into that we're maturing, that we're now becoming tenured professors.
Beginning to take the reins of leadership in the academy. And hopefully we can begin to bring our training to bear on some of the problems that people of color face that American democracy faced.
Tavis: All right, so as part of this post-soul generation, tell me what the argument here is that we're trying to make in "A Shade of Blue" and whether or not one can make that argument to everyday people with words like pragmatism (laughter) formulated around John Dewey.
Glaude: I think so. One of the things that I've been blessed with, Tavis, is to be able to travel around the country - in some instance with you, in some instances with Dr. West - and to be able to talk to everyday folk. And part of that conversation has involved really thinking about how do we understand ourselves as Black folk?
How do we understand the history that informs the very ways in which we go about acting in the world? And more importantly, how do we conceive of our actions transforming the world in which we live in? And part of that conversation, at least on my part, has involved making explicit my philosophical commitments. And those philosophical commitments, as you've already mentioned, have everything to do with John Dewey and pragmatism.
I was introduced to John Dewey through Cornel West and that conversation really in some ways sparked how I wanted to think about Black folk tinkering with their circumstances, Black folk imagining themselves acting vigorously and vitally to transform the country in which they live in to, uh, to be skeptical of dogmatism all the way down.
So what I tried to do was to take pragmatism and bring it across the tracks. That is to say, bring it to the other side of town and take those resources as John Dewey suggests that we should do, instead of just simply bring to bear my training on the problems of philosophers, but instead bring to bear my training on the problems of human beings, specifically Black folk.
And what I've tried to do is to kind of clear the underbrush, as it were, and in clearing the underbrush open up a venue for young folk to begin to think anew about the politics of Black America.
Tavis: All right, so for those young people watching right now, what do we mean fundamentally when we talk about - Dewian or not - the notion of pragmatism?
Glaude: Well what we mean in essence Brother Tavis is we mean three things. One, I think we want to begin with the kind of anti-foundationalism. That is, we wanna be skeptical of all quests for certainty. That is to say all attempts to fix reality. That is to say we want to concede the notion that the universe is open-ended, and that because it's open-ended, there's always possibilities.
Secondly, because it's open-ended and there's always possibility, it leaves room for us to tinker, to engage in experimentalism. And if human beings are engaging in experiments, tinkering with their environment, that means we can revise truths. That means that we can engage in a kind of revision of our circumstances.
And lastly, it emphasizes the capacity of everyday, ordinary folk. It's this Emersonian legacy, Brother Tavis, going back to Ralph Waldo Emerson. We want to emphasize the capacity of everyday, ordinary folk to transform their circumstances. So we want to be anti-foundational on the front end, we want to be experimental as we make our journey from womb to tomb, and we want to emphasize that we have the ability to save this world. And if we don't act, the world could definitely go to hell.
Tavis: Okay, so I hear in that - pardon my trying to synthesize this - I hear in that you saying, then, to everyday people that they are the leaders they've been looking for.
Glaude: Oh, brother, you hit the nail on the head.
Tavis: So to that point, then, Professor Glaude, if everyday people then - and that's the message here - if everyday people are the leaders that they've been looking for, I could argue with you that that fundamentally challenges the very notion of what many in the Black leadership today believe or certainly act as if they believe.
Glaude: Well, I think it does and I hope it does. Part of what our challenge involves, right, today is precisely a kind of reconsideration of what we mean by leader. And I think that reconsideration is needed because we have a Black political class, Brother Tavis. And I don't want to name any names, but I could, right? A Black political class that has become comfortable with the status quo.
That is, they've become comfortable with the typical American theater of racial politics. You know what that theater involves. Somebody gets hurt, somebody creates some noise, and then somebody winds up getting paid. And the situation doesn't change. Part of what we wanna do is to emphasize that democracy at its best is when the greatest responsibility falls on the greatest number.
And what we want to do is to affirm the capacity to have everyday, ordinary folk make intelligent decisions vis-à-vis their own circumstances. And once we do that, then we put in the foreground accountability and responsibility. And when we start talking about accountability and responsibility, Brother Tavis, autocratic leaders tend to shiver in their boots. And so I think this is precisely what I'm trying to say.
Tavis: But let me just go back a half a beat here. When you say that the modus operandi is essentially this, the pattern is this: somebody gets hurt, somebody makes noise, somebody gets paid - I like the way you broke that down - but hearing you say that - pardon the pun - well, there's no pun at all - that sounds like Juan Williams on Fox News Channel, not Cornel West on PBS.
Glaude: Well, I don't think so. I think part of what - I wanna say it in love, and I hope that sounds like Dr. West, right? I wanna say that in love. That is to say, we have to bring a critique to bear on our current political class, Brother Tavis, because as Dr. West would say, they lack courage. And if we were to ask him to unpack what he means by that they lack courage, the first thing he would say is that they're failing to speak truth to power.
And the second thing he would say is that they seem to be beholden to money. And the third thing that he would probably say - and I don't wanna speak for him - is that their utterances seem to lack love. And part of what I wanna say is that when we begin to think about lacking courage, being preoccupied with money, and lacking love, all of this has something to do with being comfortable.
Being comfortable with the status quo. Trying to reproduce one's own position as being the leader in front of the march. And instead of us having leaders do that, we need to have leaders to become more thoughtful and imaginative about the circumstances of Black folk, particularly those who have fallen beyond the pale. And so I say that in love.
I don't say that because I have a conservative agenda. I definitely won't say that because I'm appealing to the producers of Fox News. I'm saying that precisely because we are in a moment of profound transition. You know this, Brother Tavis, 'cause you've been traveling all over the country. You see how hungry everyday, ordinary folk are, and you see how fed up they are with people - as I hope this makes sense to folk - as people exploit them, or shall we say pimp them, in the name of Black love.
Tavis: Let me close by asking, to that last point, then, people being pimped in the name of Black love, to quote you, what role, then do we ascribe to these everyday Black people in this text "In a Shade of Blue?"
Glaude: Well, I wanna say that everyday, ordinary folk are the source of the needed transformation of American democracy. If we don't begin to create the kinds of institutional spaces, Brother Tavis, where everyday, ordinary folk can come together and deliberate substantively - not just talk, but to deliberate substantively about their circumstances, and then after engaging in substantive deliberation being able to act intelligently on those deliberations, then we doom America to failure.
We doom it. We seal, in effect, its fate. So part of what I wanna suggest is that the future of America lies not of those who will be the future president or the folk in Congress or somebody who will be named tomorrow the next head Negro in charge, but rather it rests in the hands of everyday, ordinary folk. For them to believe that they have the capacity and the ability to transform not only their circumstances, but to save this nation.
Tavis: It's a long way from Moss Point, Mississippi to the ivory tower of Princeton, but Eddie Glaude, Jr. has navigated that journey. Now a full professor at Princeton alongside his mentor, Cornel West, and has a new book out called "In a Shade of Blue: Pragmatism and the Politics of Black America." Professor Glaude, nice to have you on, sir.
Glaude: Well, nice to be on here, Tavis, and thank you so much for all the love that you're spreading all around the country, brother. Thank you so much.
Tavis: Thank you for coming on the program; appreciate it.
Back to March 26, 2007