Cornel West | |
Cornel WestCornel West, "On Black Fathering" Cornel West (1953- ) was born in Tulsa, Oklahoma and earned an A.B. from
Harvard University in 1973, and both an M.A. (1975) and a Ph.D. (1980)
from Princeton University. He has taught at Harvard, Princeton, and Yale.
His books include The American Evasion of Philosophy: A Genealogy of
Pragmatism (1989), the American Book Award-winning Beyond Eurocentrism
and Multiculturalism (1993), and The War Against Parents: What
We Can Do for America's Beleaguered Moms and Dads (1998), which he
co-wrote with Sylvia Ann Hewlett. West's writing also appears frequently
in periodicals such as the New York Times, the Chronicle of
Higher Education, and The New Yorker. "On Black Fathering," which illustrates one of West's concerns
about parenting, is taken from the anthology Faith of Our Fathers:
African-American Men Reflect on Fatherhood (1996). | QUESTIONS FOR DISCUSSION | CONTENT - According to the author, what two main things must one do to become
a good black father?
- What happens when the author's dad turns thirty-one?
- What does the author mean by the phrase "patriarchal identity"?
- How does West define love?
- At the end of the essay, what is the author looking forward to?
- Where did Clifton Lincoln West Jr. go to college? Where did he
apply first? What happened to his first application?
- Describe the author's relationship with his father.
STRATEGY AND STYLE - Discuss this piece as a cause and effect essay. What main causes
does the author describe? What are their effects? Do any of these effects
in turn become causes?
- In paragraph nineteen West contrasts Kool-Aid and blood. How can
you explain this contrast in light of the author's feelings about family?
- The author names the workingmen of Glen Elder in a particular way
in paragraph nineteen—Mr. Peters, Mr. Pool, Mr. Powell,
Mr. Reed. How else could he have identified them? How does his
choice give you an indication of how he felt about these men?
- This essay is divided into two parts. What are they? How does the
tone differ from one part to the other? Use specific words and phrases
from your text to support your answer.
| ENGAGING THE TEXT | - How would you describe your relationship with your parents? What
thoughts of parenting crossed your mind as you read this essay?
- Think of a friend from an ethnic background that's different from
yours. What's different in the style of parenting you've observed when
with your friend, as opposed to your own upbringing? What's similar?
What does ethnic background have to do with these things?
| SUGGESTIONS FOR SUSTAINED WRITING | - Write a comparison/contrast essay using this piece and one of the
following readings from your text: Anna Quindlen's "Evan's Two
Moms," Judith Cofer's "Casa," or James Baldwin's "Notes
of a Native Son."
- Using your reading and your own experience, write a definition
essay in which the main topic is love. Make sure to mention West's ideas
of love, which you examined in Content question d.) above.
| FOR FURTHER RESEARCH | Review your answer to Content question f.) above, and do some research
to answer the following questions: How many black students were attending
the University of Tulsa in the five years following World War II? How
many were attending Fisk University? How can you characterize Fisk? How
did your research deepen your understanding of this essay? | WEB CONNECTION | Read this critique
of some of West's views of parenting from the online magazine, Salon.
What similarities did you find between the essay and this article? How
are they different? Defend your answer with specifics from both "On
Black Fathering" and the Salon.com article. | LINKS | Biographical Here's West's page
at Harvard, where you'll find biographical information, a photo, and
some links. Take a look at another West biography
from Harvard, this one from the Coop, the university's main bookstore.
How does the information here differ from the information on the page
above? What might account for the difference?
Bibliographical It's time for some of West's work in etext. Click here
to read (you can listen, too!) to "A Conversation on Race,"
which the author prepared for the PBS program Frontline. Do you
like to use etext? Explain. Ready to do some further research about this author? This West
bibliography
will give you plenty of sources to consider. (It compiles more than
130 works by and about the author.)
Cultural How about a taking a look at this author from another perspective?
Take a visit to Cornelwest.com,
and you'll find a lot of information about an album West collaborated
on with Derek "D.O.A." Allen called Sketches of my Culture. Want more background about one of this author's frequent topics? Here's
the homepage of Parents
magazine. How about some similar information from a different perspective? Check
out the homepage
of the I Am Your Child Foundation. What did you learn by clicking through
this site?
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