Month: May 2021

So every finance major you’ve ever met has learned that central tenet of the corporate religion known as shareholder theory: financial managers exist to maximize shareholder value. Simply put, a good financial manager seeks to increase their corporation’s profits and thereby grow a stock owner’s dividend payment; if the stock owner is happy, the manager is happy.

This might seem intuitive, but shareholder theory actually introduces a quagmire of moral ambiguity. Underpaying employees; exploiting child workers; and engaging in cheaper, environmentally unsustainable practices can each increase profits, but at what cost? Can any businessperson worth his salt truly justify such blatant unethicality?

Yes, actually. According to shareholder theory, we’re taught exactly that.

 That’s because those employees and those children are not shareholders, but stakeholders: parties with a vested interest in a firm but who do not necessarily own stock in that firm. In this case, the stakeholders rely on the company for income–they want the company to do well so that they can make enough money to survive. In all cases, shareholder theory requires that financial managers completely cut stakeholder interests out of the picture; shady business practices of all sorts are not only allowed, but encouraged, so long as they benefit shareholders.

During this week’s discussions, we debated whether or not James Baldwin had a responsibility to represent the female perspective in his work as a man. Professor Kinyon reminded us that James Baldwin catered his rhetoric to a white male audience. White women historically supported the political narrative by aligning their votes with their husbands’; Baldwin could therefore concentrate his conversion efforts on an all-male congregation and achieve similar results.

To synthesize these ideas, the men are shareholders: they own stock in the political arena and Baldwin (our trusty financial manager) must appease them to succeed. The women that Baldwin marginalizes in his body of work are stakeholders and, according to shareholder theory, simply do not factor into the equation. 

The funny thing about shareholder theory, though, is that–as ingrained into our curriculum as it may be–it doesn’t work. Studies show that when companies put their stakeholders first, they actually perform significantly better in the long run. By taking care of employees (factory workers, custodians, etc.), a company improves its own efficiency and reaps higher profits, therefore better satisfying both financial managers and shareholders. This is called stakeholder theory.

I believe that in the same way, Baldwin could have maximized his own success by addressing the female perspective in his work. If his goal was to increase interracial cooperation and improve the Black condition in America, Baldwin might’ve enjoyed greater success by affording women the same time and attention as men rather than ignoring 50% of the very society he sought to change. While I can understand the logic that led Baldwin to tailor his rhetoric to white men, I can’t help but question whether or not his efforts to maximize shareholder value at stakeholders’ expense precluded him from fully recognizing another value–that of the female perspective–altogether.

Last week, our class discussed the “price of the ticket” for Irish immigrants in coming to America and becoming white. The process of becoming white and finding success in America as Irish immigrants hinges on denying the Black presence and thus debasing themselves. As Baldwin writes in “On Being ‘White’ and Other Lies,” the price of the ticket for white people is delusion. Because white Americans have built their identity on fear of Black people and the fear of lacking power, they are unable to have a community. Instead, as Baldwin writes, they are a multitude. However, they have deluded themselves into believing they are a community. 

Irish immigrants are a particularly interesting case of paying the ultimate price for power. Aside from their delusion, another price they pay is losing their community, their language, their culture. In joining the white monolith, Irish immigrants lose their Irishness. The extent of many Irish Americans’ understanding of Irish culture is rooted in celebrating St. Patrick’s Day and possibly supporting Notre Dame football. 

In coming to America, the Irish lose their identity, but many of them left to escape that same fate back home. The English were hard at work subjugating the Irish people, stripping them of their language, their religion, and their freedom. Ironically, the Irish who left for America ended up suffering the same fate. In the process of escaping one power attempting to crush their culture, they lost their culture themselves. To some immigrants, the cost of the ticket was lower than the cost of staying. As white Americans, they denied the existence of Black Americans like the English denied the existence of the Irish. Black Americans were able to retain their community, because it was not built on fear. They developed a language and kept their culture alive as they battled for freedom. 

Throughout the course and over the last couple of weeks, we’ve talked about the price that was paid for some to become white, who tells history, how they tell it and why, and who has to do the work to redeem this country. I’ve also been thinking about Rae’Vonne’s post regarding confederate statues and symbols and how those ties in the fabric of what is America. In On Being ‘White’ and Other Lies,” Baldwin states: ” America became white—the people who, as they claim, “settled” the country became white—because of the necessity of denying the Black presence and justifying the Black subjugation.” He continues to assert that the white community is built on a “genocidal” lie. People became white through many crimes against humanity, against Black people. This brings me back to Rae’Vonne’s blog post about the statues. So much brutality has broken out over the past couple of years over symbols and uses of American history. Baldwin did talk about this desire that those who identify with the history of the confederacy, be it because they’re actually racist or (what is the other option? a love of history?), wanting to protect this inhumane foundation at all costs. Why? Because the history of this country is seen as inseparable from the statues and monuments today.

In 2010, a self-proclaimed Neo-Nazi floored his car into a group of protesters in Virginia. Many people were injured and a woman, Heather Heyer, was killed. The protesters were gathered to battle against America’s racist history. In that town, there are still statues of Robert E. Lee and Thomas Jackson. Some people want those statues and those like them to be torn down, while others, who proudly call themselves neo-nazis or nationalists, see it as a representation of their understanding of America where white people are superior. Some, who have rejected these two groups still want the statues because they claim it reminds the country of brilliant military leadership. There will always be, it seems disagreements on the story that is told. In “No Name in the Street,” Baldwin said, “One may see that the history, which is now indivisible from oneself, has been full of errors and excesses; but this is not the same thing as seeing that, for millions of people, this history . . . has been nothing but an intolerable yoke, a stinking prison, a shrieking grave.” If White people and those with power in this country continue to accept this genocidal lie, then no one else can effectively reject it or move forward in true progress. So how do we move forward? I’m not sure, but the way I see it, one of the crucial steps is to educate and teach every facet of history to our children and ourselves.

Last week’s presentations made me think a lot about the educational system in the United States and how we are doing such a disservice to our country’s students by not teaching them the truth. As Charity pointed out in her presentation, education takes place within the confines of a society that strives to uphold the values and status quo of that society. What a child learns in school cannot be separated from what she learns outside of the classroom, and the classroom can either reinforce or challenge what a student learns in her everyday life. Usually, because of the way that schools are structured and regulated, a child learns a very cut-and-dry version of the material that she is meant to comprehend. We see this with how schools teach students about slavery and civil rights in that children only learn about the same preapproved topics of discussion without any context of Black history. For example, students do not often know the truth about how horrible the conditions of slavery were, the lynchings that took place, and the gross injustices that were put into practice in order to try to control Black individuals. They do not learn about slavery from the Black perspective and about how Black people fought back against these injustices, thereby sending a message to students that it must not have been all that bad. This invalidates the Black experience and the intergenerational trauma that has taken place because of this horrific past. Our educational system is designed to keep the divide between Black and white students, to control Black students, and to establish “inferiority” and “superiority” among the different students. It is my hope that as our society becomes more aware of the problems with perpetuating these practices, our teachers and our schools will be more willing to teach this material with the integrity and empathy that it necessitates.

When I think of James Baldwin, I do not see him as a revolutionary. It is not that I do not respect his work for Black Americans or that I believe that he did not do enough work to better the American environment for Black Americans. But in a way, James Baldwin did not do enough. His positionality was not one that would cause an overhaul of the Western industrial complex or even that of the American industrial complex.

In a way, James Baldwin was complicit in the suffering of Algerians at the hands of the French. Just because you are American does not mean that you have the right to ignore the suffering of others. In ignoring the suffering of the Algerians to allow for the “freeing of his soul”, James Baldwin took up a position that white people take in America.

James Baldwin protected his place in society by ignoring the suffering of the Algerians. I do not know if it was his place to speak on the oppression of Algerians but Frantz Fanon spoke on it when he was from Martinique. James Baldwin chose to stay blind to the suffering of Algerians. Even when you do not feel right speaking up about a topic, it is your prerogative to uplift voices that can speak on it. James Baldwin did not do that.

In that vein, James Baldwin is not a revolutionary because he did not see the point of overall Black freedom. Nor did he truly see the point of Black freedom in America. The idea that love can solve everything is incomplete. Again, I am going to bring up Stokley Carmichael’s quote. True reconciliation is impossible with a country or a society that has no conscience or feels no pity or shame for what it has done to you and your people.

James Baldwin asserts that it is possible for racist white people to come around and partake in the love that he was talking about, but it has been years. We are dealing with the same things over and over again. If there was a point at which racist white people would come around, would it not have happened by now? What is it that we have to do to make them come around? What is it that we, as Black people, have to change to make them come around?

The answer should be nothing. In changing ourselves to receive some affection from those who hate us, we essentially destroy ourselves in the process. This is not an argument where you can meet in the middle (not to say that that is what James Baldwin was saying). Sometimes I think it is impossible for America to change. Sometimes I think that people like James Baldwin and Martin Luther King Jr. have not done enough to actually change America.

I think about the Black Panther Party that crossed racial lines and country boundaries to bring together a coalition that could reset the way America and the rest of the Western world worked (not to say that this movement did not have its own problems). I think about John Brown who was about that action and sacrificed his life to the movement to end slavery. James Baldwin does not fit in with these people. I hate to say it but maybe he was all words and no action.

In the presentations this week, I came across a quote from a Rhonda Lois Blumberg’s Women in the Civil Rights Revolution: Reform or Revolution? that was referenced. It read, “[d]espite the active participation of women in revolutionary movements, feminist impulses that surface are usually considered secondary to the ‘main’ battle and are not allowed to interfere with it. The stirrings of feminism, within the civil rights movement were considered divisive.” (Blumberg 137) This really made me think beyond the civil rights movement in America over to any struggle or movement, by the oppressed, that I have heard of. Women are always last. It is always a fight for independence that the said oppressed – men and women – work together towards achieving this goal. After overcoming multiple hardships, when independence from the oppressor is achieved, men get all the rights, but women need to continue their struggle to further achieve the rights that they helped the men achieve. This sad truth seems to be a pattern. In India, when the country gained independence from the British Raj, after two hundred years of struggle, the men could have some respite, but the women had to continue their struggle. The British, took the convenient and non-controversial route and did not take a decision on female suffrage. It is after the Montagu – Chelmsford reforms that women were granted the right to vote. These discussions took place before India formally became independent, which meant that the time period for women to achieve this goal was relatively shorter to that in other countries. In the US, it took nearly a hundred years for women to achieve this feat. The fact that women, in so many culturally and geographically different situations are ignored to a point where their rights are seen as a secondary issue is a problem I fail to understand the root of. How did the phenomenon of male superiority come about at different times across the world, in vastly different contexts? And why was it ever okay? 

“My Dungeon Shook” combines a personal, philosophical, and urgent tone to create a weighty and undeniably moving piece. Particularly, after reading it in light of our discussion regarding effective teaching pedagogies, I was struck by the language surrounding history. Baldwin effectively categorizes the way history functions as a tool for the oppressor, as well as its interaction with whiteness. “History,” though, in this letter is a complex term. For example, Baldwin delineates between different types of histories. Of the crimes of whiteness, Baldwin asserts “neither I nor time nor history will ever forgive them, that they have destroyed and are destroying hundreds of thousands of lives and do not know it and do not want to know it.” Here, history seems to refer to a neutral, objective force of justice and inertia, that ultimately progresses toward true emancipation for Black Americans. 

Baldwin describes another kind of history, though. He explains, white people “are, in effect, still trapped in a history which they do not understand; and until they understand it, they cannot be released from it.” The entrapping, false history is distinguishable from the previous definition. History, in this context, upholds injustice and opposes motion. It also comes to define whiteness, in its horrific and distorted “innocence” of manipulative and coercive ignorance. It is this type of history that Baldwin tells his nephew “does not testify to your inferiority but to their inhumanity and fear.” The malleable history is forgettable, boring, and whitewashed. It lacks nuance but commands and ensures violence. 

Luckily, Baldwin continues to resist through his letter to his nephew. Once again, he reinterprets the word history. By narrowing in on the particulars that whiteness erases, Baldwin reanimates history. He tells his nephew “It will be hard, James, but you come from sturdy, peasant stock, men who picked cotton and dammed rivers and built railroads, and, in the teeth of 4 the most terrifying odds, achieved an unassailable and monumental dignity.” With his history of dignity and honesty, Baldwin inches society closer to the capital H history which moves indefinitely and unstoppably toward justice.