Date/Time
Date(s) - 01/26/2021
6:30 pm - 8:00 pm
Categories
Courageous Conversations at BAPL continues with Ibram Kendi’s book “Stamped from the Beginning: The Definitive History of Racist Ideas,” focusing on W. E. B. Dubois.
W. E. B. Dubois went through an evolutionary process that shaped him into the leader we know him to be. Du Bois, at ten in 1879, “gleaned his first sense of racial differences,” and believed at the time that “American racism could be persuaded and educated away.” He graduated from elite educational institutions, such as Fisk University, Harvard University, and the University of Berlin. Based on the climate of his time, how was this possible? Throughout the book, Kendi debunks uplift suasion: the idea of the exceptional or extraordinary Negro. Within the Black community, being exceptional was carved into minds as a brainwashing tactic and a divisive mechanism to persuade those into believing in “colorism,” the “Black Elite,” and the ‘Talented Ten.” Dubois was later awakened “from the paralysis of this commonly held judgment taught to me in high school and two of the world’s great universities,” that “Africans had no history.” How can we now awaken minds taught a watered-down/whitewashed history? How can we dismantle, in essence, a racial caste system? How can we become “woke”? Join the conversation as we look at W. E. B. Dubois in the context of the psychological warfare that colorism and elitism have played and continue to play within our society.
Our book series is not your ordinary book discussions. They are conversations that go beyond the written discourse in “Stamped from the Beginning.” We aim to disturb and stimulate the mind while looking for solutions to the racial dilemma.
Register by Monday, Jan. 25 & receive Zoom meeting information by email.
Note, this event will also stream live on Facebook. (https://www.facebook.com/paBAPL)
Bookings
Bookings are closed for this event.