How Far Have we Really Come: How to address the issues of race in America

"Don't let your past come back to haunt you". That saying has stuck in my head since the first time I heard it at the age of 10. I always believed that if we reflected on our past to much it would prevent us from moving on to what our future has in store for us. Yesterday, however, my view has somewhat changed when it comes to that saying. This is due to Dr. Sundiata K. Cha-Jua. I had the fortunate pleasure of attending Dr. Cha-Jua's lecture yesterday, "Resurrecting Ghosts of the Past: Building Black Studies on its Radical Intellectual Tradition". Dr. Cha-Jua's lecture focused on the problems that exist for African Americans in the American society and how black studies in the collegiate curriculum can fix this. Before I go into more details though, let me first give a brief background of Dr. Sundiata K. Cha-Jua.


Dr. Sundiata K. Cha-Jua is an Associate Professor of History as well as an Associate Professor of African American Studies at the University of Illinois, Champaign-Urbana. Before going on to the University of Illinois, Champaign-Urbana, Dr. Cha-Jua  was the director of the Black Studies Program at the University of Missouri at Columbia. As of today, Dr. Cha-Jua focuses his research towards the investigation of the African American community formation and the impact that the black social movements have had on it, as well as African American historiography. Dr. Cha-Jua was generous enough to share some of his research and his views on these particular issues with the DePauw community in his lecture "Resurrecting Ghosts of the Past: Building Black Studies on its Radical Intellectual Tradition".

Dr. Sundiata K. Cha-Jua first started his lecture by presenting us, the audience, with how the black studies programs that are in collegiate universities emerged. Dr. Cha-Jua claims that the roots of black studies lie in the black power wave. He supported this claim with a quote from Fabio Rojas (Assistant Professor of Sociology at Indiana University), "We are essentially looking at an academic discipline evolving from a radical movement". Dr. Cha-Jua further went on to claim that African Americans in the United States are currently experiencing a nadir. He believes that this "new nadir" is contradictory in the sense that even though the United States has finally brought about a black president (President Barack Obama) and expanded the black middle class, however, there is still a regression for African Americans. Dr. Cha-Jua forms this claim based off his research. Dr. Cha-Jua's research shows that there is still a continuation of racial violence and the unemployment statistics are greater for African Americans then it is for whites. His research states that in 2008, for every 1 dollar whites made, African Americans only made 58 cents. His research also states that as of 2013 the black median income is lower now than it was in 1990 as opposed to whites. Dr. Cha-Jua also claims that there is a bevy of social indicators that show that things have gotten worse for blacks since the Civil Rights movement. The role that Black Studies plays in this issue, Dr. Cha-Jua claims, is that it confronts the white supremacists acts of trying to discipline race studies. If these statistics are true and we really have not come far as an American society when it comes to the issues of race, particularly with that of people of color, then what can be done to change this someone might ask?

Dr. Cha-Jua argues that we are haunted by our history and in order for these issues to be resolved Black Studies professionals must revisit the ghosts of the pasts. These ghosts are people such as Ida B. Wells (a narrative black scholar who exposed rape as a myth and argued that lynching was a form of terrorism to keep African Americans at bay), W.E.B Du Bois (the first U.S. citizen to conduct empirical sociological research and provide a radical revision of racial class), and Claudia Jones (the first activist intellectual to conceptualize the triple oppression of women, as well as argue that the activation of black women would enhance the imperialist of black people). Dr. Cha-Jua also argues that Black Studies need to develop research around specific problems such as poverty. He believes that Black Studies need to create social conditions where it would counter the individualism that is at the heart of academia. Dr. Cha-Jua argues that black studies must be transformed back into the intellectual source that it used to be; it must build bridges with the community. In its transformation, Dr. Cha-Jua believes that Black Studies need to develop a theory, origin, and thesis of black suppression. Dr. Cha-Jua's final argument is that African Americans need every day, not just a month (referring to Black History month), in order to retrieve the ghosts of the past and move past the issues of race.

As I have already stated above, after hearing Dr. Cha-Jua's lecture my view of "revisiting the past" has changed. I believe that in order for a person, or in this case a society, to go forward they must first go back. In order to get to the root of the problem of racial issues in America we must first go back to how they emerged and how people before us have worked to change them. Our greatest teacher, in my opinion, is our past. Shafer-Landau's The Fundamentals of Ethics talks about moral progress and how cultural relativism and subjectivism can't make sense of the most basic kind of moral progress (295-296). I think about Shafer-Landau's text when it comes to the issues that Dr. Cha-Jua presented and it makes me think that, maybe America hasn't realized that we really have not progressed morally because how could we realize this in a country where we govern our moral principles based of both cultural relativism and subjectivism? As Shafer Landau puts it, "If subjectivism is correct the ultimate rule is personal opinion. If relativism is correct the ultimate rule is given by a society's basic ideals." (296). As an African American male I personally believe that we have not come far as a society when it comes to the issues of race. I feel as if the struggle still exists for African Americans and I believe this because experiences in my everyday life tend not to show me otherwise. Time and time again African Americans are over looked when it comes to job opportunities and are marginalized in today's society. That is just one problem African American's have to face but there is a long list of more to choose from. However, I believe that this problem can't fully be blamed on white Americans today. As a good friend of mine BJ Teriba put it, "how can you blame the slave master's grandchild for the unjust actions of the slave master". The blame doesn't lie in one particular group of people instead it lies within all of us equally, in my opinion.

I think in his lecture, I Dr. Cha-Jua should have shed a little more light on getting Black Studies more back into the community instead of just in collegiate universities. As African American college students we become part of the privilege. We get to experience the Black Studies Program and learn about whether our actions as a society are moral or immoral; but what about the kids in America who do not share the same privileges that we do, shouldn't they get same information as well? How are we supposed to improve as a society when we are only strengthening one half? I'm pretty sure Dr. Cha-Jua was not saying that we should only focus on collegiate universities and share this information of "Ghosts of the Past" with only them, but I think he should have talked about how we need to get the Black Studies program put into high schools and elementaries as well. At least I think that's what needs to happen in order to help raise awareness of racial issues. If we don't help our future, the kids of today, and inform them of our past mistakes, then how can we ever improve as a society?