Ubuntu
Last Thursday (December 11), I attended a panel organized by a working group at the University of Illinois called Ubuntu. Computer scientists kind of colonized the word by using it to describe a Debian-based Linux distribution. But in any case, Ubuntu is a Xhosa and Zulu word describing a philosophy of community and sharing. And the UI Ubuntu has come together in the aftermath of the shooting death of 15-year-old Kiwane Carrington of Champaign. Kiwane died after being shot by a police officer in October 2009 at close range, as he was trying to enter a house where he had been staying. His friend who was with him, Jeshaun Manning-Carter, has been charged with aggravated resisting arrest (a felony) for trying to avoid the police. Jeshaun just turned 16, and will be on trial in early 2010. There has been a lot of news coverage (in several publications and online), so I won’t repeat what is covered elsewhere.
Ubuntu participants want to reclaim the Black Studies tradition of scholar-activism, and I applaud them! Historian Clarence Lang talked about the continuum between academic excellence and social responsibility; campus and community; study and struggle. Historian Sundiata Cha-Jua spoke about reviving a Black United Front that would bring about an annual report issued on the police use of force; a petition to Congress to make the police use of excessive force a federal crime; and a citizen’s police review board in Champaign, among other ideas. Imani Bazzell, who wears many hats, mentioned her program, “At Promise…of Success,” which sees youth as promising success rather than “at risk” of failure. She advocated for workshops for public school teachers to increase their knowledge of the black intellectual tradition. Sociologist Ruby Mendenhall spoke about the oral histories that she has been gathering with her students. County Board member Carol Ammons spoke movingly about her anguish and her frustration with teen-police relationships. I cannot even begin to do justice to the powerful words she voiced. Other speakers included Brendeesha Tynes, Ken Salo, Kerry Pimblott, Barbara Kessel, William Kyles and Pastor Nash. Barbara Kessel spoke about her research into “domestic rendition,” the removal of prisoners from Cook County Jail to Kankakee in order to use tasers on these men. Taser use in Cook County is illegal.
The room was packed. There is such a need for coordinated effort and continued conversation. Thanks to Ubuntu for taking up the challenge. I hope we can build a strong wall, with varied bricks and stones, that will collectively support each other and resist disunity in the face of inevitable differences.
Perpetual Peace Project
Perpetual Peace Project is organized by the Slought Foundation, based on Immanuel Kant’s Perpetual Peace: A Contribution to Political Science (1795). The project “is a two-year initiative of the European Union National Institutes of Culture’s ‘Series in New European Manifestos,’ which re-revisits and re-writes European political texts that have profoundly shaped our modern world.” Kant noted that the phrase “perpetual peace” was posted near a cemetery, with the recognition that death might be the only human way of achieving peace. Kant’s preliminary articles from the late eighteenth century bear listing here, in the same week that Barack Obama accepted the Nobel Peace Prize while increasing the numbers of US troops to be deployed to Afghanistan. I have much to learn about Kant, because I find these statements surprisingly radical. But then 1795 was a radical time in western Europe. It’s possible that Kant wrote this as irony, and intended to cast doubt on there ever being such a thing as Peace.
Article I. No conclusion of Peace shall be held to be valid as such, when it has been made with the secret reservation of the material for a future War.
Article II. No State having an existence by itself–whether it be small or large–shall be acquirable by another State through inheritance, exchange, purchase or donation.
Article III. Standing Armies shall be entirely abolished in the course of time.
Article IV. No National Debts shall be contracted in connection with the external affairs of the State.
Article V. No State shall intermeddle by force with the Constitution or Government of another State.
Article VI. No State at war with another shall adopt such modes of hostility as would necessarily render mutual confidence impossible in a future Peace; such as the employment of Assassins or Poisoners, the violation of a Capitulation, the instigation of Treason and such like.
Kant says of the modes listed in Article VI that “these are dishonorable stratagems.” Indeed. The Slought Foundation and its collaborators encourage us to rewrite this possibly satirical manifesto in light of contemporary events.
My rewriting of Article I: We must constantly remember that an open hand can become a fist.
Other rewritings to follow. Thanks so much to Aaron Levy of the Slought Foundation for our conversation yesterday!
