| |
IPC Keynote Address
SAVING THE WORLD(AND OTHER AGENDA ITEMS)
BY MARK WINSTON GRIFFITH
KEYNOTE ADDRESS TO THE NEWLY CONSTITUTED INMAN PAGE BLACK ALUMNI COUNCIL
FACULTY CLUB, BROWN UNIVERSITY
OCTOBER 13, 2001
Peace, Greetings and Shout-outs to all the people who are a part of this moment, the pioneers who have delivered us to this place: First and foremost, the current students of color at Brown; the students of classes and struggles past who are now alumni; parents; Brown staff, administrators and faculty; the interim Inman Page board; the members of the Corporation; and of course our distinguished leader, the honorable Ruth Simmons.
This is so unlike me. I give speeches all the time, but for weeks I’ve been in such desperate search of words that will adequately address the gravity of this occasion. What we are engaged in here is so full of rhythm, life, endless possibility, audacity, funk and bottomless humanity that I just want to close my eyes, smack my lips and clap my hands. I feel solemn and giddy all at once. How do we find the right mixture of substance and ceremony to usher in Ruth Simmons and the emergence of Brown’s first Alumni Body of Color, with all this rampant expectation dangling in front of us? Because when all is said and done, what really is at stake is the future of the world.
“The future of the world”, you ask? Yeah, I know until recently, I just didn’t get it either. Let me explain. Harold Bailey called me a few months ago to invite me to run for the Presidency of the new Inman Page Black Alumni Council. After probably less than 6 seconds of deliberation on my part, I said “Yeah, what the hell”, really more out of hubris and ego than common sense. So one might conclude it was a somewhat rash decision. Let’s put this in perspective: I’ve spent more time suffering over what type of cheese should go on my tuna melt at the local diner.
So clearly, I didn’t get it. But slowly I started to catch on. First I was asked to write a short campaign platform and then submit a mug shot for a ballot book that was going to be sent to hundreds of people, most of whom I didn’t know. Then Harold began to describe the history of what is really an empowerment movement at Brown at all levels of this corporate and academic institution. Then I came to campus, sauntered into the office of Ruth Simmons, star of CNN and 60 minutes, like I was somebody, and then breezed into the offices of administrators who run the joint. And then I heard Elmo refer to President Ruth and the Brown Alumni Council as a dream undeferred. And then I reflected on the fact that in a series of protests in 1985 - that was inspired by the walkout of ‘68 and takeover of ‘75 - I and a cadre of other students helped lead the takeover of the John Carter Brown library, a building steeped in the legacy of slavery. It wasn’t until all this that I began to realize the seriousness of being elected to this position in the same year of our leader, President Ruth.
And so when I looked back and considered what I had so flippantly said “yes” to and the election I had won that was closer than Bush vs. Gore in Florida, dimpled chad and all, my first, instinctive response was: “Damn, I better not ‘F’ this one up”.
For those of you who don’t know me, I run a neighborhood-based organization in Brooklyn, USA that builds local economic and political power. We do this by organizing people around economic and social justice issues and by forming self-sustaining cooperatives institutions, like a neighborhood credit union and a market for displaced street vendors, for example. But if you ask me what I really do I say I’m a servant of community building. And that’s how I see my mission here, as the lead servant of the Inman Page Black Alumni Council. I see myself as the builder of a community that includes not only black alumni, but extended family that includes students, other alumni of color, parents, faculty and administration and members of the corporation. So how do I plan to serve as a builder of this community? Let me break it down real quick:
- First: I want to have one-on-one conversations with all the folks who have been involved in the creation of the Inman Page Council over the last few years and also identify other leaders in our ranks. From this, draft a cross generational dream team of Black alumni leaders and advisors to participate on the council who are powerhouses in areas such as student support, fundraising and development, curriculum development, college admissions and faculty recruitment. Most importantly, these folks need to be willing to work.
- Second: I want sit down with these folks and carve out a short and long term plan for building a viable alumni body, improving the quality of life for Black students at Brown and helping Brown become a model of American pluralism. When I refer to pluralism, I mean a firmly institutionalized voice for people of color that doesn’t speak from the fringes as a minority, but from the center of power, as an equal stakeholder.
- Three: Lead a grassroots effort to build a viable Black alumni database and system of communication. Let’s be honest, most Black alumni are like me: They don’t open up Brown mail, they hardly ever read the Brown Alumni Monthly and for various reasons they feel seriously disconnected from this university. More fundamentally, the university doesn’t have updated information on us. Many people I know never received a ballot for this election. Our contact information and profiles are stored in each other’s palm pilots and little black books. We run into each on the street, attend each other’s weddings and hook each other up professionally. One well placed piece of gossip would probably make it into eighty percent of our email boxes. We need to record and formalize this network and aggressively use it to support each other and the work of the council.
- Four: Create a strong, binding relationship with students and establish an on-going dialogue that is maintained year after year. Stay in tune with what affects students, help connect them to their legacy, support them in their struggles, both public and private, provide resources for them in school and after graduation and actively learn from them.
- Five: Fundraise
- Six: Fundraise
- Seven: Party, have fun and then fundraise some more
Sounds easy? Yeah, right. Well it starts in this room, it starts with each of us committing ourselves to playing role in this campaign, whether it’s tracking down a disconnected alum, contributing fifty or five thousand dollars, giving a student a summer job, attending the opening of a Rites and Reasons play or identifying Black faculty. Again, the possibilities are endless.
So, again, what does this have to do with the future of the world, you ask? Well, let’s cut to the chase and talk straight for a moment: The irony of this moment is that it shouldn’t be so special. It’s the end of 2001 and here we are celebrating the first university-sanctioned, alumni body of color and first woman of color President in this leading institution of American higher education. That tells you more about how far we have to go than how far we’ve come. It reminds me of the words of the late poet Robert Hayden that I first read in Professor Michael Harper’s class in 1984:
When it is finally ours, this freedom, this liberty, this beautiful and terrible thing, needful to man as air, usable as earth; when it belongs at last to all, when it is truly instinct, brain matter, diastole, systole, reflex action; when it is finally won; when it is more than the gaudy mumbo jumbo of politicians’
When this freedom, this “needful” thing as Hayden called it, “grows out of our lives” and into the lives of future generations, that’s when we will have arrived.
When it comes down to it, the Inman Page Black Alumni Council is about power, Black power to be specific, the power of humanity to be even more specific. But let’s be clear about what we mean by power, because in today’s world, as men, slithering under every conceivable cloak of religious and patriotic fervor are playing their sick, macho war games, lobbing bombs at each other; while each of us sitting here has caught ourselves over the past month contemplating homicidal ways to legitimize our world view and protect our middle class way of life, we are witnessing first hand the exploitation of power in the service of separation, hatred, belittlement and destruction.
There is so much at stake today, isn’t there? So the Inman Page Black Alumni Council can’t be about simply finding another way to divide ourselves into yet another clique, another interest group that can shout demands. Hell, that’s easy. Everybody’s doing it. This is more than can be summarized by waving a Black fist. I’m talking something much more subtle, even more revolutionary, more evolved, more sophisticated. I’m talking about dropping a new kind of science. I’m talking the power to move Brown and the halls of higher education far, far beyond race sensitivity and diversity. I’m talking the power to hold the University, and by extension, this country accountable to a vision of pluralism and full humanity. I’m talking about the kind of power that can build a university into a place where people think without boundaries, and learn to instinctively love and respect each other, a place where people, through reflex action, see the self-interest in sharing power with those around them. I’m talking the power to build a university where a new generation of world citizens value non-American, non-white, non-western and non-SUV-owning experiences and lives as much as their own.
Tall order, huh? I know what you’re thinking: “Damn, Mark I thought you were going to ask me to organize some cocktail parties”. Well, now you know why we can’t “F” this up. And like those who came before us, we won’t. We are the ones chosen.
Thank you. Peace.
|
|
