“I don’t mean some facile, bourgeois idea of individualism consistent with the political rationale of neoliberalism,” he added. Black democratic perfectionism, according to Glaude, encompasses a “radical cultivation of democratic individuality in the service of racial justice.” To encapsulate his definition of excellence, Glaude raised another term: black democratic perfectionism. White supremacy involves the way our society organizes itself and whom it chooses to value,” Glaude said.īecause of the barriers white supremacy poses on black people, Glaude said, it becomes more difficult for black people to achieve excellence. “White supremacy is more than bad people in hooded robes burning crosses … These people are easily condemnable. The rise in this sentiment, he added, brings to light the root of white supremacy. In examining the rise of the Black Lives Matter movement, Glaude noted the uptick in the belief that white lives have more value. “America sometimes resembles an exceedingly monotonous minstrel show,” he quoted from Baldwin. Relying on the concept of excellence as a backdrop for the rest of his talk, Glaude further invoked inspiration from the Black Lives Matter movement and author James Baldwin’s writing to analyze the current state of black bodies in the U.S. “At any moment some police officer could see him as a threat, and because of the value - or should I say lack of value - according to his body, he could easily suffer premature death.”
He is still subject to a kind of precarity that comes with being a black person in this country,” he said. “My son attended Brown University but that doesn’t matter. Though he noted that missing his son was a normal feeling, he added that the sentiment was amplified by the fact that his son is a black man in America. Glaude began his talk by sharing a story about his son who had left home for college. He regularly writes for Time and MSNBC, and is the author of multiple books including “Democracy in Black: How Race Still Enslaves the American Soul,” among other books. Martin Luther King Jr./Black History Month Symposium speaker series.Ī professor of religion and African American studies at Princeton, Glaude additionally boasts previous visiting scholar positions at Harvard and Amherst. gave a talk at the college titled “Interrogation of Excellence in the Black Experience.” The talk, which was held in Cole Assembly Room, is the last installment in the Dr. 20, author and Professor Eddie Glaude Jr.
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