The Crisis of the Negro Intellectual: A Post-Date

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The Crisis of the Negro Intellectual: A Post-Date
Author(s): Hortense J. Spillers
Reviewed work(s):
Source: boundary 2, Vol. 21, No. 3 (Autumn, 1994), pp. 65-116
Published by: Duke University Press
Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/303601 .
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The Crisis of the Negro Intellectual: A Post-Date
Hortense J. Spillers
1
The silver anniversaryo f HaroldC ruse's Crisis of the Negro Intellec-
tual1 has passed without remark.T he occasion of the lapse, as well as a
few notes on the situation of the black creative intellectualt oday, provides
the impetus for this writing. From the distance of twenty-seven years, the
"crisis"t hat Cruse explores appears infinitelym ore complex than it might
have been in 1967, when the work was published to controversial hue and
cry. One's impression is that the project did not win the writerv ery many
friends or influence the rightp eople,2 but that it was as necessary a reading
1. Recentlyr eissued, The Crisiso f the Negro Intellectuabl ears the subtitleF romI ts Ori-
gins to the Present (New York:W illiamM orrowa nd Company,I nc., 1967). All citations
fromt he text come fromt he 1967 edition,w ithp age numbersp arentheticallny oted.
2. RobertL . Allen'sB lackA wakeningi n CapitalisAt merica:A n AnalyticH istory( Garden
City,N .Y.:A nchorB ooks, 1970) examines The Crisisa gainst the backdropo f the Black
Powerm ovement.S ee "BlackP owera nd BourgeoisB lackN ationalism,"17 1-80.
Contemporaneousr eviews of Cruse's worka re too numeroust o list here, even par-
tially,b ut I would call briefa ttentiont o two of them fromt he period:M ichaelT helwell,
boundary2 21:3, 1994.C opyrigh?t 1994b yD ukeU niversitPyr ess.C CC0 190-3659/94/$1.50.
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66 boundary2 / Fall1 994
and calling out as we had had in quite awhile, and, I would go so far as to
say, have not quite matched since that time, even though we have been
treated to a few celebrated "licks"o n the theme by prominentb lack intellec-
tuals along the way. I recall with some nostalgic yearning, related both to my
youth and to what must have seemed to many of us then a period of great
optimism, reading The Crisis, a couple of years after its publication,i n great
excitement and agitation of feeling. First,h ere was an explicit statement, at
length, concerning the vocation of the black intellectualf or the firstt ime, as
far as I could tell, since W. E. B. DuBois's autobiographicalp rojects, begin-
ning with The Souls of Black Folk (1903), that blended the strategies of the
"self-life-writing"w ith those of culturala nd politicalc ritique. In other words,
"WhatI s to Be Done?"P artisanR eview3 5, no. 4 (Fall1 968):6 19-22; and ErnestK aiser,
"Review,"F reedomways9 , no. 1 (Winter1 969): 24-41. Thelwellf inds abundanti ronies
riddlingC ruse's posture towardt he intellectuals,a mong them, that Cruse, while lam-
basting others for their pursuito f integrationissto cial practices,h ad had himself to go
"downtown"fo r the publicationo f his book. Furthermorej,u st as Cruse had held black
intellectualsc ulpable to charges of intellectualt imiditya nd self-ostracism,h e himself,
Thelwelli mplies,h ad reenforceds uch a stance by appealingt o them as a separate and
distinctc lass interesto r formation": Event he titleo f this bookc onstitutesa kindo f heresy
in that liberalt raditionw hichm aintainst hatt he communityo f 'intellectualsi's raceless and
shares only work-relatedp roblemso f methodologya, nalysis,c raftsmanshipf,o r it sets up
a 'class' of black intellectualsw ith common problemsn ot shared by nonblacks"( 619).
Thelwellf inds the intento f The Crisis "obscure,"it s focus "blur[red]a,"n d its readingo f
the role of communisti deology overdeterminedin Cruse's assessment of integrationist
distortions.( I would pointo ut anothers mall ironyo f ironies:t hat Thelwellh imselfw ould
appear as one of the essayists in a collectiono f responses to WilliamS tyron'sc ontrover-
sial novel of 1968, The Confessionso f Nat TurnerT. enB lack WritersR espond published
pieces on Styron'sw orkt hat ranged in view fromo utraget o subtlerc riticals ignatures.
The pointi s that if Thelwellh imselfd oes not mean the openings entence of his reviewa s
tongue-in-cheek,t hen he willh ave missed the politicailm plicationos f both the collection
of essays and manyo f the essayists' anger at whatt hey felt to be aggressive presumptu-
ousness on Styron'sp art.N eed we pointo ut that blacki ntellectualsa s a social formation
sprout teeth precisely because the liberalv iew, itself a politicalp osition,s utures power
differencest hat conceal the moves it performsa s a natural" innocence"?)
Ernest Kaiserr eviews The Crisiso f the Negro Intellectuaal gainst the perspective of
AfricanA mericani ntellectualh istory,n otingt hat several of its early reviewers,m any of
them Anglo-Americanre viewersf or mainstreamjo urnalsa nd newspapers,h ad produced
a hodgepodge of incoherencei n addressingt his work,p reciselyb ecause they were igno-
rant of its predecessor texts. Kaiser'sr eview is valuable, because it examines several
positions on The Crisis and the ways in which they are flawed. The Journalo f Ethnic
Studies devoted a thirdo f its contents to a reappraisaol f Cruse's worki n vol. 5, no. 2
(Summer1 977): 1-69.
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Spillers/ CrisisA: Post-Date6 7
DuBois'sa utobiographiews ere themselvesa demonstrationof the project
that the black creativei ntellectuaml ighte ngage when he or she defines
his/hera uto-bios-graphein the perspectiveo f historicatli me and agency.
BetweenD uBoisa nd Cruse,w itht he possiblee xceptionso f RichardW right
and RalphE llison,w ho had bothf ocused on the fictionawl riter'sc ommit-
menta nd vocation,w e had hadt o waita while,a s thoughp oised,i ts eemed,
for an apposite interpretivgee sture at the close of an era of cataclysmic
events between Brown versus Board (Topeka) (1954) and the 1964 Civil
Rightsl egislation-the two punctualitietsh atf rameo ne of the most fateful
decades of AfricanA mericanc ulturaal nd historicaal pprenticeshipin the
UnitedS tates. Second, Crusea ppearst o have been upt o the job, notm inc-
ing wordsa boutt he intellectuafla ilureso f the dominanct ulture,n ot biting
his tongue, either,a boutt he abysmalc onceptualla pses of the minorityo ne
in question,s pecificallyt, he ill-preparednesosf my generationo f political
activistst o take on the strenuoust ask of sustaineda nalyticalla bor.N ow it
seems that we have not only not yet articulateda systematicr esponse to
Cruse's "crisis"b ut that the problemst hat he was courageous enough
to confronth ave notb een betterf ormulatedd,e spiteo uri mproveda ccess to
certainc ulturailn stitutionasn d conceptuaal pparatiT. akingC ruse,t hen, as
one of ourc hiefc artographersc,a n we begint o mapt he terraina new? Can
we say morec learlyn ow,a fterh is example, perhapsb ecause of it, what
the problemi s that constitutesa "crisis"fo rt he AfricanA mericanc reative
intellectuaal t the moment?
Ourc risis today is confoundedn ot only because so mucht ime has
passed between one systematica rticulationa nd the next (stills lumber-
ing somewhere)b utp rimarilbye cause the peculiarc onjunctionof historical
forces has broughtu s to an uncannys ite of contradictionsw: hen Cruse
wrote his work,t he impulseo f the revolutionary-atl east the spirito f re-
volt-was everywherei nchoate,a lthought here had not yet been massive
publicr eactiona gainstA mericanin volvemenitn VietnamS. tudentr ebellion
at the time was largelyc enteredi n the southernU nitedS tates, takingi ts
majori mpetusf romM artinL utherK ing'sn onviolenpt rotocols-voter regis-
trationc ampaigninga nd grass-rootso rganizingin ruraal nd urbanc enters
across the South,a ndt he wholer angeo f acts of civild isobedience,f roms it-
ins, pray-insa, nd wade-insa t pools, restaurantsm, ovieh ouses, and other
places of publica ccommodationt,o the economict ool of the boycott.B ut
StokeleyC armichael'(sK wameT ourec) ryo f "BlackP ower"o n a Mississippi
roado ne day (whiche vent Cruseh istoricizesin the closingc haptero f The
Crisis), the assassination of MartinL utherK ing,J r., the inspired witness of
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68 boundary2 / Fall1 994
Malcolm X, and the dramatic rise of the national Black Panther Party were
driven like a wedge through black psyche, an occurrence that had been
prepared by the Watts rebellion of 1965 and the assassination of Malcolm
El-Hazz MalikE l Shabazz that same year. But it seems that something so
awful crystallized in 1968, on either side of the Atlantic, that in my own
autobiographical sense, at least, the year irrevocablys plit time around it
into a "before"a nd "after,"fi nding closure only during the fall of 1969. It is
as if one day the familiarw orld spun out of control, as, for instance, two
cultural icons fell over within six weeks of each other in the raw display of
a national pathology. That incredibley ear, which markedt he assassination
of both Kinga nd Robert Kennedy,w hich witnessed the most brutaln ational
Democratic Party Convention in living memory, and which, by its end, saw
the instauration of Republican rule that would run unbroken in the nation
from 1968-1993, with a four-yearr espite duringt he Carterp residential era,
would inscribe as well the inaugurationo f changes that we could absolutely
not have foreseen in their broader scope and meaning.
The period 1968-1970 meant, at last, the fruitiono f a radical and
pluralistic democracy, or so it seemed, with, for example, comparatively
larger numbers of AfricanA merican students admitted to the mainstream
academy and agitation for the movements in black studies and women's
studies, and theirf ar-reachingi mplicationsf or a radicallya ltered curriculum,
especially in the humanities. These initiativesc onstituted the vanguard of
an attitudinals ea change, which, coterminous with the Continental move-
ments in structuralistc riticism, linguistics, feminist theory, and philosophy,
would so reconfiguret he leading assumptions of the traditionalh umanistic
order, that within twenty years of the American withdrawalf rom Vietnam,
the "English department,"f or example, as an institutionald isciplinarys ite,
would be virtuallye vacuated as a unified course of study, grounded in an
indisputable canon of "great"l iteraryw ork and supplemented by a more or
less homogeneous criticale stablishment.
In brief, as turbulent as the 1960s were for those of us who lived
the era, as crisis-ridden as the situation was for the black creative intel-
lectual, as Cruse understood it, nothing within his lights or our own could
have sufficientlyp repared us for what I would regard as the central paradox
of this social formation nearly thirty years later: Although African Ameri-
can intellectuals as a class have gained greater access to organs of public
opinion and dissemination, although its criticale nterprise has opened com-
munication onto a repertoireo f stresses that traverse the newly organized
humanistic field, and although we can boast today a considerably larger
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Spillers/ Crisis:A Post-Date 69
black middle and upper-middlec lass, with its avenues into the professions,
including elective office, some corporate affiliation,v irtuallya ll of the NBA,
and the NFL, and a fast break into the nation's multimilliond ollar "image"
industries, the news concerning the AfricanA merican life-worldg enerally
is quite grim. In fact, it is chillingn ews, as we learn from certain observers,
that the black prison population in the United States, for example, is sub-
stantial enough to "outfit"a good-sized city-some six hundred thousand
subjects, most of them male. And, indeed, there seems very little reason
to believe that certain undiminisheds ymptoms of social dysfunction will do
anything but exacerbate what is, for all intents and purposes, a genocidal
circumstance: the unabated availabilityn ot only of drugs but of the social
and economic networko f relations that have engendered a veritable drug
culture; the ravages of poverty and illiteracy;a vital internationala rms mar-
ket that directlyf eeds a nation in love witht he idea and practice of violence;
and race hatred/"tribalism,"re stitutedb y an entrenched and immoralp oliti-
cal reactionism, whose targets are the city-its poor, its young mothers,
and their children.
To call attention to these vital details is to indulge the litany of re-
sponses that is by now customary fort he blackc reative intellectual.3T hough
3. Pastor of Dorchester,M assachusetts's Azuza ChristianC ommunityt, he Reverend
Eugene Riversa ddressed an open lettert o Boston'sb lacki ntellectualse ntitled" Ont he
Responsibilityo f Intellectualsin the Age of Crack,"p ublishedi n the Boston Review 17,
no. 5 (Sept./Oct. 1992):3 -4. The lettere laboratesi ts concernsa gainstt he backgroundo f
Noam Chomsky'se ssay, "TheR esponsibilityo f Intellectuals,w" hicha ppearedi n a 1967
issue of the New YorkR eview of Books. Chomsky,i n turn,h ad been inspiredb y a series
of articles writtenb y DwightM acDonalda, ppearingi n the journalP olitics.T he question
was whether intellectualsh ave any special moralr esponsibilitya,n d Riversq uotes from
Chomsky'sp iece: "Intellectualhsa ve a 'responsibilit.y.. to speak the trutha nd to expose
lies' and a duty 'to see events in theirh istoricalp erspective"' (3). Callingd irectlyo n the
Boston/Cambridgei ntellectualsb y name, Rivers remindsh is readers that a black elite
is "note xempt"f romt he currentc rises facing AfricanA mericanc ommunitiesa cross the
country.R ivers'sc all was answeredo n two separate occasions, at fora sponsored both
times by the Boston Review. The firste xchange took place on 30 November1 992, at the
Arco Foruma t HarvardU niversity'Ks ennedyS chool of Governmenth; osted by Anthony
Appiaho f Harvard,s peakers includedR iversh imself,C ornelW est, bell hooks, Henry
Louis Gates, Jr., Glenn Loury,a nd MargareBt urnhamT. he transactionsf rom the initial
symposiumw ere publishedi n the Boston Review 18, no. 1 (Jan./Feb. 1993): 22-28.
The second roundo f talksw as convened at MITa, gain undert he auspices of the Bos-
ton Review, with complementarys ponsorshipp rovidedb y MIT'sD epartmento f Politics;
hosted by MargareBt urnhamo f the Departmenot f Politics,s peakers includedR everend
Rivers, Regina Austin, RandallK ennedy,S elwyn Cudjoe,a nd bell hooks. This second
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70 boundary 2 / Fall 1994
no one ever quites ays it this way, it is as if the intellectuahl imself/herself
is culpable,b oth as a social formationw ithint he largere nsemble and in
person, fort his precises tructureo f contradictionsB. ecause Crusei s work-
ing off the traditionaelm plotmentT, heC risis,t oo, refractsc ulpabilitoyf the
blackc reativei ntellectuali;n fact, we mighte ven say that disparagement
of the intellectuailn generala nd of the AfricanA mericanin tellectuailn par-
ticulari nscribesi tselfa s a rhetoricaflo rmo f utteranceB. uti ft he intellectual
subject,a s Is ee it,c an accept no creditf orw hateverg ains blackA mericans
have made overt he past thirtyy ears, exceptt hath e/she has been a bene-
ficiaryt, hen one is hardp utt o imputeb lamea t his doorstepf ort he failures.
Its eems to me that a more usefulw ay of analyticaal nd declamatoryp ro-
cedurew ouldb e the attemptt o establisha totalp erspectivea gainstw hich
the worko f the intellectuaul nfolds.I no therw ords,t he plighto f the Ameri-
can city and its implicationfso rt he social landscapem ustb e examineda s
one of the primarys tructuragl ivens to whichs ocial formationsv ariously
respond.I attempts uch a sketchb elow.
Whilet he desegregationo f the nation'sp ublics chool systems was
intendedt o address and amelioratein feriore ducationafl acilitiesp rovided
forA merica'sb lackp opulationi,t appearst o have induced,b y the way, the
collapse of a homogeneouss tructureo f feelinga nd valuet hath ad consoli-
datedn otionso f self-esteema nds teeled the soul of the blacky ounga gainst
the assaults that awaitedi t. Butt he liquidatioonf a traditionapl rogramo f
values, as it relates to AfricanA mericans,i s only a single featureo f the
radicals wervet hatw orrieso ne's perspective;in fact, we mighte ven go so
fara s to say thatt he dispersalo f blacki ntellectuatla lent,a nd its deflection
awayf romi ts customarys ocialt arget,i s a symptomo f certaing lobalf orces
that have had a negativei mpacto n the lifeo f Americans ociety in general,
rathert han the primaryca use of devastationt:h e entirea rrayo f postmod-
ernist sociality,w hose chief engine is fueled by late-capitael conomies,4
has homed in on blackl ife withl aser-likep recision.V erys pecificallyt, he
condensationa nd displacemento f labor( intrudinFg reudw hereo ne never
expected to findh im)f avort he well-educatedso cial subjectw ho can dance
forumo ccurredn earlya year latero n 17 November1 993. The Boston Review published
the transactionsi n volume 19, no. 1 (Feb./Mar.1 994):3 -9. Glenn Louryw, hose illness
preventedh im froma ttendingt he second meeting, publisheda companionp iece, "The
Povertyo f Reason,"1 0-11, in the same issue of the journal.
4. I broadlya llude to one of the definitivew orks on the postmoderniste ncounter pro-
vided by FredricJ ameson, in Postmodernismo, r, The CulturaLl ogic of Late Capitalism
(Durham,N .C.:D uke UniversityP ress, 1991).
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Spillers/ CrisisA: Post-Date7 1
the new technologieso f automatedw ork,m ovingt he society towardl ess
and less physical labor,a lteringn otionso f liberalp ropertyin the process,
and towardt hose subjectsw ho can interpretth e social organismb ack to
itselfa s readers,w ritersa nd managerso f highlyc onsolidateds ocial prop-
erties, bothr eala nd symbolic.T5 he actualf lighto f laborw, hicho ne had not
quiter ealizedw as "flightu"n tilt he dramaticc losingo f the GeneralM otors
plant at WillowR un, Michiganf,o r example,d uringt he nationalp olitical
campaignso f 1992, quitel ikelyo riginatedw hen one was simplyb eing an-
noyed rathert han watchful-duringt he era of whatw e have come to call
the oil crisis of 1973, withi ts attendantm anipulatioonf the global money
supply,t he increasingp oliticacl louto f the Organizationof PetroleumE x-
portingC ountries( OPEC)a, ndt he comingt o internationadlo minanceo f the
Asianm arket,p articularltyh e awesome competitivem achineryo f Japan's.
(Those of us who grew up in strong,b lackn uclearf amiliesq uite simply
shuddert o thinkw hat mighth ave happenedt o ourselves in the absence
of, say, a MemphisI nternationaHl arvestert,h e companyf romw hich my
father retiredi n the earlys eventies. A manufactureorf farmi mplements,
based in Illinois,M emphisI nternationaHl arvesterm oved away fromt his
majors outhernc itys hortlyt hereafterp, hasingo ut a few thousandj obs with
its departureO. ne of the city'so therm ajori ndustries-FirestoneT irea nd
Rubber-closed at aboutt he same time,a s it,a nd otherp ost-WorldW arI I
enterprises,w hose workersh ad educateda good numbero f the earlya nd
late "boomer"c rop, eitherd isappeareda ltogethero r convertedt o greater
automationI. t is not by errort hat a phenomenonn amed "thec onsumer,"
the origina nd end of mass distributioann d productionw, as "born"to us
with vividp resence at the close of the sixties. Automatedm achineryo, f
course, "automaticallyc"on solidatesl abor'sq uantitya, s it altersw orkt ype
and content, and as PresidentC lintona lludest o the pointb y encourag-
ing the nationalb usiness communityto practicea nd elaboratep rotocolso f
job "retrainingH."e predictst hat America'sc urrentc ollege populationf,o r
instance,w illc hangej obt ype at least a halfd ozent imesb eforer etirement.)
The decline of the Americanm arkett, hen, whichR eagan's "Good
MorningA, merica"lo w-taxp rogramd idn otq uitef orestallh, as joinedf orces
withl ate-capitasl chemes of globalr eorganizatioinn a dizzyingv elocityo f
5. A useful collectiono f essays on positionso n propertyb, eginningw itht he seventeenth-
century doctrine of liberalp ropertye spoused by John Locke, is providedi n Property:
Mainstreama nd CriticalP ositions, ed C. B. MacPherson( TorontoU: niversityo f Toronto
Press, 1978).
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72 boundary2 / Fall1 994
change that has shifted the very imaginaryo bject on which the black cre-
ative intellectualh ad worked at one time-a stake in the soil, actually bound
by coordinates on the map of the inner city: the old "community"is neither
what nor where it used to be, as the tax base could not but have followed
the wealth-both in and of itself and of labor's potentials-to the city's rim
and well beyond.' Even though it seems to me that this latest version of
urban flight might be traced back rather pointedlyt o a month and a day in
1954 and the famous (or infamous, depending on one's viewpoint)S upreme
Court mandate to public school districts to desegregate "witha ll deliberate
speed," such movement, along the rifto f America's sharply drawn binary
markers--"black" and "white"-was underscored by voting patterns that
brought massive gains to a new, post-Goldwater Republican Party. At the
very moment, however, that the new studies movements and widespread
student protests were makingt heirw itness felt on college campuses across
the United States, a mature political" backlash"--which the Clinton "Third
Way" interrupted,t hree decades later, by interpolatinga different political
strategy between a strictlyu rban, predominantlym inoritya, nd poor elector-
ate, on the one hand, and a basically suburban, predominantlyw hite and
middle-class electorate, on the other-had been preparing itself for well
over a decade.
Within this maelstrom of forces, the black, upwardly mobile, well-
educated subject has not only "fled"t he old neighborhood (in some cases,
the old neighborhood isn't even there anymore!) but, just as importantly,
has been dispersed across the social terraint o unwonted sites of work and
calling. From my point of view, this marks the ace development that today's
black creative intellectual neither grasps in its awful sufficiency nor wants
to bear up under inasmuch as he/she is sorely implicatedi n its stark ramifi-
cations. (We chase, instead, after fantastic notions, quite an easier pastime
than looking at what has happened to community.)I t would be an error to
assume that he/she has had the choice to do other than go out, just as our
current social and political analyses are spectacularly "hung up" on a too
literal and simpleminded idea of what community might mean, in the first
place, and in addition to a location called home. I believe that an under-
6. Mike Davis offers a stunningr eadingo f the nation'ss ocioeconomic crisis by way of
one of its majori nner-cityf ormations-South CentralL os Angeles-in "WhoK illedL A?
A PoliticalA utopsy,"T he New Left Review 197 (Jan./Feb. 1993): 3-29. Davis trailst he
tax base to the suburbanc ontext and discusses its implicationsfo r presidentialp olitics
1992. But against his broads trokes, we espy the largerf ate of the Americanp eople in
lighto f post-Cold Warl abors hortages.
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Spillers/ CrisisA: Post-Date7 3
standingo f this internadl iasporaw ouldb ringt he blackc reativei ntellectual
to a more satisfactoryv iew of the thematicso f flight,a ratherc ontrastive
nuance, after all, to that of dispersal.A nd it wouldc ertainlyr edirecth is/
her wasted energy,m oaningo ver a monomytho f a versiono f community
that only needs enterprisez ones in ordert o be whole again.T his paraly-
sis of understandingb, roughto n by guilto ver one's relatives uccess and
profoundd elusiona bouto ne's capacityt o lead the masses (of which,o ne
supposes, it is certaint hat she is not one!) out of theirB abylon,d isables
the intellectuaol n the very materiagl roundw hereh e/she now stands: on
the site of the mainstreama cademya nd its variousi deologicala pparati,
for the most part,a s the assumptionso f the progressivem ovementst hat
propelledh im/hert o such statusi nt he firstp lacea re quietlyt,h oughw idely,
threatenedn ow by a well-heeled,h ighlye fficientc oordinationof right-wing
hegemonicf orces,7s preadingl ike myceliumth rought he body politic.T he
conservativea gitationt hatC rusem usth ave sorely,u rgentlyfe ltd uringt he
writingo f Crisisi s fullyu nfoldedi n our midstt oday,a nd the picturei s not
pretty.A s I see it, the most significantlays sertive domestice nemy since
the ravagesa nd excesses of the McCartheyr a drovea punishingo ffensive
throught he hearto f an olderc adre of left-wingin tellectualst,h is new im-
moralityo f power,t rickedo ut in the discourseso f politicaal nd economic
rationalisma nd bindinga nationaal rrayo f appallingliyg noranmt ediai n its
thrall( to wit,t he canardo f "politicaclo rrectness,"v irtualluy nquestionedb y
nearlya ll printm ediai n the UnitedS tates) goes basicallyu nchallengedb y
today's comfortablel eft-wingi ntellectuaslu bjects, of whichs ocial forma-
tion the blackc reativei ntellectuaol ughtt o be not only a memberi n good
standingb utp erhapsa mongt he firsts tanding.D istractedi,n stead,b y false
or secondaryi ssues, yieldinga pparentlyli ttler esistancet o the sound intru-
sion of marketi mperativeos n the entirei ntellectuaolb ject,i ncludingth at of
AfricanA mericans tudies, today'sb lackc reativei ntellectualle nds herself/
himself-like candy beingt akenf roma child-to the mightys eductionso f
publicitya nd the "pinup,r"a therl ikew hata n editoro f LinguaF rancao nly
half-jokingldyu bbed, once upon a time, the "AfricanA mericand u jour."
Mightit be useful,t hen,t o suggest thatb eforet he blackc reativei ntellectual
can "heal"h er people, she mustc onsidert o whate xtents he must "heal"
herself, and that before the blackc reativei ntellectuacl an offera salvific
7. A piece of workt hat I wouldc onsiderr equiredr eadingf ora fulleru nderstandingo f the
politicalc onjuncturein whichw e are currentlylo cated," Manufacturinthge Attacko n Lib-
eralizedE ducation,"b y EllenM esser-DavidowS, ocial Text3 6 (Fall,1 993):4 0-81, unfolds
the sources and the stage of right-wingU .S. politicafl ormationin the Reagan/Bushe ra.
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