Pollitt on West

d-m-c at worldnet.att.net d-m-c at worldnet.att.net
Thu Dec 31 17:08:23 PST 1998


At 07:33 PM 12/31/1998 -0500, you wrote:
> At any rate, how does one
>justify West's silence about power within the family?

Because he's Black.

That's not a justification, rather an attempt to understand. The family and the power relations therein is experienced rather differently for Black men than it is for white men, middle class or otherwise. This is pretty clear, just quickly skim the literature on the family written by Black men and, of course, take a look at the literature on the family written by Black women. Frankly, I think West ought to at least have been a bit more aware of these debates, tensions, fields of contestation. Again, it's not a justification, an observation about something I'm familiar with as I teach about families and Black families on occassion.



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