AGENDA:

Conference on Race and Culture

Monday, March 22, 2004
8:30 am –  3:30 pm
Columbia University
Roone Arledge Auditorium | Alfred Lerner Hall
2920 Broadway @ West 116th Street, New York City

The Conference on Race and Culture will seek to forge understanding between black scholars on all points of the political spectrum on a crucial issue in today’s racial climate in America: what is “African American Culture”? In an increasingly hybrid society, what will the place and nature be of a coherent and constructive conception of a subcultural black identity? How will we balance resisting injustice with incorporating ourselves into a dynamic and promising mainstream?

8:30 - 9:00 AM

Registration

9:00 - 9:15 AM

Opening Remarks: John McWhorter, Manhattan Institute Senior Fellow, author of Losing the Race

9:15 - 10:30 AM

FIRST PANEL: AUTHENTICITY
Debra Dickerson, author of The End of Blackness
Glenn Loury, founding director of the Institute on Race and Social Division (IRSD)
John McWhorter, Manhattan Institute Senior Fellow, author of Losing the Race
Moderator: Armstrong Williams
Authenticity: Throughout our history, resistance to injustice has been an obviously urgent task for engaged African Americans. Yet the progress we have made requires a reconception of this facet in our identity. What is it to be “Authentically Black” in 2004? How will we combine the forces of hybridity, essentialism, resistance, and conformity into an identity that best equips us to move ahead?

Break

10:45 - 12:00 PM

SECOND PANEL: POPULAR CULTURE
John McWhorter, Manhattan Institute Senior Fellow, author of Losing the Race
Stanley Crouch, syndicated columnist
Joseph Phillips, commentator and actor
Moderator: Clarence Page, Chicago Tribune
Popular Culture: What is a healthy popular culture for a race with a tragic history emerging from centuries of oppression? For many, the countercultural messages of hiphop constitute a proactive voice from below. Others call for a more conformist brand of uplift, displaying black America’s strengths and possibilities. This panel will examine hiphop music, black film and literature from a historical and present-day perspective to seek insights on these issues.

12:00- 12:30 pm

Break/Reception

12:30 - 1:45 PM

LUNCHEON KEYNOTE ADDRESS

Break

2:00 - 3:00 PM

THIRD PANEL: RACE, CRIME AND THE MEDIA
Roy Innis, Congress of Racial Equality Chairman and CEO
Michael Meyers, New York Civil Rights Coalition
Reverend Gene Rivers, National TenPoint Leadership Foundation
Race, Crime and the Media: The frictions between blacks and the law, and the large numbers of black men in prison, are the most prominent factor in many black Americans’ sense that America remains an ineradicably racist nation. What are the solutions that work in resolving these problems? Have the media exacerbated the issue in their coverage, and what role can they play in assisting past this crucial stumbling block towards getting past race in America?