Rate this quote: Day 1 (John Henrik Clarke)

[DrBanneker]

This is the first of a new series on rating quotations. Occasionally I will post a quote, be it insightful, controversial, or just funny and you can rate and comment on it. I will also include a short bio of the source of the quote as well. Many will be quotes by Black people, some will not. See rules at the end of this post.

I guess I'll shamelessly tag some of the usual suspects to get this kicked off. @boy @ogc163 @Rhakim @EndDomination @Booksnrain @Hiphoplives4eva @Stringer Cochran @Lord Scarf @Imhotep2 @HarlemHottie @xoxodede @Originalman @Bawon Samedi @FAH1223 @88m3 @newworldafro @DEAD7 @thekingsmen @alexander.

We have not considered that the education for white people in this country is basically bad, and it is even worse for us. If we had followed Booker T. Washington's educational plan there would not be a boarded-up house in any black community. There would be black plumbers, black carpenters, blacks who own brickyards, and black technicians who would fix the houses long before they reached the point of being boarded-up.

Had we followed W.E.B. DuBois' program, there would be no inept black politicians because we would have learned how to make our politicians accountable to us, or else we would remove them. We should have had a wedding between what Booker T. Washington was saying and what DuBois was saying. Instead we called Washington a traditionalist and DuBois a modernist and did not see that there was no conflict between one and the other.

John Henrik Clarke (1915-1998)

Brief bio: John Henrik Clarke was an African-American historian, professor, and a pioneer in the creation of Pan-African and African studies in professional institutions in academia starting in the late 1960s. Born in a sharecropper family in Columbus, GA he left the country to study in NYC in 1933. While there he gave himself the middle name "Henrik" after the radical Norweigen playwright Henrik Ibsen. He became a renowned scholar despite lacking formal education credentials. In his New York Times obituary it was noted that the activist's ascension to professor emeritus at Hunter College was "unusual... without benefit of a high school diploma, let alone a Ph.D." It acknowledged that "nobody said Professor Clarke wasn't an academic original."

Clarke was also an avid Pan-Africanist who said African-American history could not be taught while ignoring African history and often hosted African liberation leaders in his home during the independence wars on the 1960s and 1970s.

Rules:
Shamelessly borrowed from the "Rate this Anime Thread"

1. You can rate a quote based on truthfulness, insight, or even plain wit

2. Ratings are on a 1-10 scale with 1 being garbage and 10 being TRUTH

3. The results of the poll will be displayed publicly

4. Time for votes will last for approximately 48 hours.

 

[EndDomination]

This is a pretty top-tier quote - outside of their professional beef and bizarre subservience to certain elements of white culture - the camaraderie that their ideologies had can and would have provided an immense good.

 

[Double Burger With Cheese]

Don’t know much about him, but the quote alone is false in the sense that he is speaking in extremes. He said there wouldn’t be ANY boarded up houses had we followed Booker T cause we would have people with skills in the community to fix them. That makes no sense and is a false correlation. Then he said we would have NO inept black politicians had we followed DuBois. It’s always gonna be inept/corrupt politicians.

So I don’t know if this dude had unrealistic expectations of some utopian society for black people, or if he was using hyperbole to drive his point home. I don’t know enough about him to say either way

 

[Asicz]

Bo

This is a pretty top-tier quote - outside of their professional beef and bizarre subservience to certain elements of white culture - the camaraderie that their ideologies had can and would have provided an immense good.

Who was subservient?

 

[⠀X ⠀]

He had quotables for days.

“I only debate my equals, all others, I teach.”

 

[Asicz]

He's probably right about the trades but there was active discrimation against back tradesman finding work in the North.

When black men couldn't fill these positions in then first place then they can't pass the trade along. Not sure if they can teach the trade.

Black men were dealing with hostile European immigrants for these jobs and locked out. The Irish would literaly attack and stop work if a black man walked on the job site.

Then you had immigration from South Of the US get these jobs and depress wages.
Then you had mass incarceration.

Clarke may be leaving factors out as to why black men are not in the trades at the level he thinks they should

 

[DrBanneker]

Don’t know much about him, but the quote alone is false in the sense that he is speaking in extremes. He said there wouldn’t be ANY boarded up houses had we followed Booker T cause we would have people with skills in the community to fix them. That makes no sense and is a false correlation. Then he said we would have NO inept black politicians had we followed DuBois. It’s always gonna be inept/corrupt politicians.

So I don’t know if this dude had unrealistic expectations of some utopian society for black people, or if he was using hyperbole to drive his point home. I don’t know enough about him to say either way

JHC exaggerates a lot to get points across in my opinion. In another quote he talks about it being a "mistake" to have separate Black history departments (he was a pioneer for Black studies) since he believed true Black history (US and global) needs to be integrated and taught as a comprehensive part of history as a whole. He didn't want to really get rid of them but press a point home.

 

[Asicz]

I saw Henri Carke speak in real life in DC I wanna say Howard when I was a kid

 

[King Poetic]

Sticky this MODS!!!

gave John a 8

 

[Asicz]

Also white Americans got a goverment program called the GI Bill and could got to trade schools and get paid apprenticeships paid for by the govt. Creating generations of white tradesman an masse.

During the GI bill Black men were largly excluded from the segregated tradeschools and discriminatory apptenticeships.

Black schools had low occupancy and underfunded and low resources because of Jim Crow.








See book "When Affirmative Action was White. " Ira Katznelson. Or YouTube lecture/ interview with @Tonetalks

 

[Professor Emeritus]

As others note, saying "no" boarded-up houses is hyperbole but that's not the central point of the quote. The real point he's making is that there was nothing opposed in DuBois's and Washington's programs. They BOTH were preaching a way of thinking that would be an asset to the Black community, there's no need to pit them against each other. Both the skills and the rights are essential.

I gave it an 8 because I see it as fundamentally true and important.

https://www.thecoli.com/threads/historical-beefs-6-w-e-b-versus-booker-t.680725/

 

[EndDomination]

Bo

Who was subservient?

WEB DuBois was to Victorian respectability - which he shed much later in his life - but it took a while.
Booker T. Washington was to accomdationism - he wanted to take his lot as far as possible without greatly challenging the status quo in the way others did - it made sense at the time. And he went further than virtually anybody else, but the cost was him literally undermining his peers.

 

[Asicz]

Ultimately white terror faciltiated by the US govt prevented alot of shyt.

 

[ogc163]

I disagree with the general point, wedding the working class and professional class has generally been difficult in all communities--not just the black community--and so he overstates its potential. And the quote also underestates systemic barriers to progress, that leads to him having misguided expectations in regards to Black institutions.

 

[Asicz]

Bomani Jones from ESPN was saying that Du Bois said( I paraphrase )the white people think ever since slavery "the Negro is to do, he must not think"

Basically going against Booker T Washington emphasis on black people doing farm work and mechanics instead of Liberal Arts education