Black Intellectuals: Race and Responsibility in American Life

Rating:
Summary: Not precisely as the title would indicate
Review: An excellent reference book that should become a primary source for anyone interested in the evolution of the Black Intelligentsia. Professor Bank's seminal work obligated re-evaluation of my concept of intellectualism; while I cannot wholeheartedly agree with his conclusions regarding some noted individuals, the exercise was beneficial. He has offered an arguably relaxed interpretation of intellectualism therefore, a number of the individuals he highlights may have been fortunate beneficiaries of caucasian largesse rather than bonafide critical thinkers, obviously dependent on one's subjective view. It is a somewhat free-flowing area of inquiry, in many respects analogous to the mis-appellation of *literate* to many of today's writers based on fortuitous publication and but meager substance.

Banks' text revealed itself to be moderately distinct from what I anticipated. He deals less with specific ideologies than with the chronology of people and their promulgated ideas. One particularly interesting sidelight related to the constraints on the Black Intellectual, until very recently, who elected to think "outside the box." In fact, vestigial reluctance by peers to acknowledge the contributions of individuals who give contemplation to subject matter outside the limits of Afrocentric or ethnic concerns still exists.

In sum, BLACK INTELLECTUALS is an indispensible overview, but definitely only a starting point for this area of investigation. The book is a commendable effort to consolidate referent material in convenient volume. It documents many of the pertinent parties but is admittedly not an attempt to be all-inclusive. What it does accomplish is immutable validation of the vast contributions of Blacks and specifically, Black Americans to every facet of art, literature, science and philosophy, in spite of the obstacles placed before them throughout the history of this country.

Rating:
Summary: Black Intellectual Journey
Review: Black Intellectuals by William Banks is a landmark text in describing the history, development, paradoxes and challenges of being a Black intellectual in the United States. Banks has illuminated the historical and cultural factors which gave rise to such men and women in an environment which denied them their humanity. I enjoyed learning about African-Americans (known and unknown) whose intellectual output critiqued and challenged both white and black cultures. It was very helpful to see how these men and women stood their ground in telling it like it is regardless of whom may disagree. Even though I enjoyed the work, I found several weaknesses. First, there was a paucity of information regarding Black women and their contributions in the intellectual realm. Some are mentioned by name and pictures are shown of them but there appears to be no serious consideration given to their thoughts. Second, Banks' text was weak in dealing with the co-opting of Black intellectual thought in white institutions. Third, Banks puts too much emphasis on those in academia as being the "intellectuals". He fails to examine those who are independent intellectuals in their own right who have impacted on the community. Despite these short comings Banks has given us a book to serve as food for thought as Black Intellectuals explore their role in the community as we head for the 21st Century

Rating:
Summary: Valuable but seriously flawed
Review: In terms of prestige and public awareness, the American intellectual is at a low point -- except for a handful of ever more prominent African-Americans. William Julius Wilson, bell hooks, Henry Louis Gates, et al may seem a bit too eager to endorse beyond-the-fringe characters and causes, but there's no question that they're the ones forging links between public action and the proverbial ivory tower, grappling with America's stickiest questions: those of race. Lest anyone think that the black intellectual is a recent innovation, Berkeley professor William M. Banks has developed a history of black American thought over the last two centuries. His stated purpose is "to chart the contours of black intellectual life across American history and to chronicle its fluctuating fortunes."

"Black Intellectuals" is a mixed bag: Banks doesn't so much "chart the contours" of African-American thought as merely hit many of its high spots; the book is too much a history of black intellectuals and not enough of black intellectualism. And even nonscholars will notice curious omissions and oversights. Despite its flaws, though, "Black Intellectuals" is valuable -- it tells the rarely heard story of black thinkers overcoming almost insurmountable barriers: first slavery, then no education, then inferior, segregated education, then discrimination in supposedly open education, and finally -- in only the last couple of decades -- actual equal access to top schools. Though Banks doesn't overdramatize and refuses to clutter his analysis with unnecessary rhetoric, the book leaves you wondering how any African-American prior to the civil rights movement managed to procure an education and an academic job. Discrimination against intellectuals funneled learned blacks into teaching and the ministry, Banks writes; at the turn of the century, more than half of black college graduates were working as teachers. But even the education establishment narrowly restricted blacks' prospects: "The white academic world was as inhospitable ! to blacks as were all other sectors of American life." Black colleges were substandard, expecting little from students and faculty and delivering less.

Shut out from white intellectual circles, 19th-century black thinkers held conventions, painstakingly crafting statements and resolutions that they realized would be ignored by state and federal authorities. Even in the glory days of the Harlem Renaissance in the 1920s, black writers and artists found themselves hampered by the particular agendas and interests of the well-meaning white patrons whose financial support was crucial. Banks describes how writers like Zora Neale Hurston were compelled by patrons to turn their work in uncomfortable directions.

Sometimes, though, black thinkers made questionable moves all by themselves, and Banks creditably humanizes his subjects by noting contemporaneous criticism of them and pointing out their suspect opinions and actions: Frederick Douglass disparaging black women writers; Booker T. Washington using political clout to "squelch black papers that crossed him"; Langston Hughes disavowing his leftist poetry before the House Un-American Affairs Committee. And Banks describes how, when the media trained attention on black militants in the late 1960s, many self-appointed authorities fell short: "By virtue of their race, not their training or interests, all black intellectuals were considered experts on race and the meaning of the black movement. . . . Quite a few dubious intellectual pronouncements flowed as black sociologists analyzed literary texts and black psychologists explained economic history."

By exploring the full range of African-American ideas (including, strikingly, dissenters like the 19th-century blacks who "resisted the principle of separate institutions and insisted that the public schools be integrated"), Banks places thoughts and thinkers in the context of history's vagaries. It's frustrating, then, that "Black Intellectuals" doesn't follow through on this well-rounded promise. In profiling and! highlighting a plethora of thinkers, Banks tends toward shallowness: He fails to draw black intellectual history in broad strokes, making connections between thinkers and thoughts; since he summarizes thinkers' views in a couple of sentences -- and doesn't tend to set those views in a continuum -- it's difficult to recall who thought what, and what difference it made.

He notes scholars' positions on political topics without actually exploring the topics and weighing the various positions taken. And he's scrupulously nonpartisan with regard to those topics; he gives dissenters equal space, muddying his goal of explaining how currents of thought developed. And there are numerous small omissions and overlookings that leave misleading impressions. There's a photo of author Alex Haley and a passing reference to his "Autobiography of Malcolm X" but no note of his groundbreaking "Roots" (and, therefore, no mention of his plagiarism). Bizarrely, the word "Afrocentrism," the wishful-thinking belief system that has proved unfortunately popular among black intellectuals as well as solace-seeking masses, doesn't appear until the book's appendix. And the appendix itself is odd: 54 pages of "selected biographies," solo paragraphs on each of dozens of writers, activists and other figures, from Benjamin Banneker to Spike Lee to Richard Wright. They are generally too selective and sketchy to be of much use, giving more space to college graduation dates than to ideas and achievements. And many choices are strange: James Baldwin's bio dubs the novelist/essayist "a sensitive boy" but fails to note his homosexuality.

While sociologist and activist W.E.B. Du Bois is the book's key figure, Banks devotes but a handful of sentences to his 1903 book "Souls of Black Folk," still the single most important work of African-American thought. More significantly, Banks dramatically underplays the classic protest-vs.-accomodation philosophical struggle between Du Bois and Booker T. Washington, which today's writers on race -- from Cor! nel West to the odious Dinesh D'Souza -- use to explain the intellectual paths that civil-rights activists have chosen and the arguments they have wielded. The Du Bois-Washington debate, still salient and alive today, provides a useful lens through which to view 20th-century race thinking; without it, Banks leaves the reader viewing black intellectuals somewhat, well, myopically.