Duke Remembers Martin Luther King Jr.
Lani Guinier says race can be a positive force for change in America
Wednesday, January 22, 2003
Often the source of oppression and stigmatization in America, race can also be a positive force, Harvard Law School professor Lani Guinier told more than 500 people gathered in Duke Chapel last weekend.
The key is to try to learn from the experiences of those people of color who live at the margins of our society, said Guinier, who delivered the keynote address during Duke's 14th annual Martin Luther King Jr. Commemoration Week.
"Not to remake them in our own image," she stressed. "But to enable us to remake this great country so that it reflects all of our images."
King understood that it was critical to link the fate of society's privileged class to that of black people in the struggle for social justice, Guinier told the audience at Sunday's event. By remaining "perpetually engaged" in the effort to make America live up to its stated ideals, King argued, black people would be securing those ideals for whites, too.
It is in this way, Guinier said, that black Americans function as the canaries once taken into coal mines.
"The canary had a more fragile respiratory system, which would give way, signaling that there was a problem with the atmosphere in the mines," she said. "And I would like to suggest that the experience of the people of color - and particularly the experience of black Americans - is the experience of the canary."
The key is to try to fix whatever is causing the toxic atmosphere, rather than blaming the bird for getting sick and then treating the symptoms, said Guinier, whose latest book is titled The Miner's Canary.
Guinier, the first black woman appointed to a tenured professorship in the Harvard law school, came to public attention in 1993 when then-President Bill Clinton nominated her to head the Civil Rights Division of the Department of Justice. Clinton withdrew that nomination after controversy arose over Guinier's views on democracy and voting.
An example of a "canary in action" today, Guinier said, is the response to the 5th Circuit Court of Appeals' 1996 ruling that the affirmative-action plan at the University of Texas law school was illegal and unconstitutional. A coalition of academics, activists, attorneys and legislators responded with the so-called "Texas 10 Percent Plan," she said. Signed into law by then-Gov. George W. Bush in 1998, the plan makes any high school senior in Texas who graduates in the top 10 percent of his or her class eligible for admission to the state's top public universities.
"This has benefited all of the students at the University of Texas," Guinier said, noting these students are outperforming peers in the classroom. "This was an initiative that started with race. It started with the concerns of students of color."
Guinier's talk highlighted the opening weekend of the university's Jan. 16-25 celebration of King's legacy. Other events included: a standing-room-only screening of the "Two Towns of Jasper" documentary last Friday; a poetry slam by poet Saul Williams on Monday; and a panel discussion titled "Conversations on Health Disparities" on Wednesday.
Monday featured several events organized by students, including a panel discussion, titled "Dr. King, Poverty and Labor Issues," which attracted 25 people to Von Canon Hall.
"It is wrong to think of Dr. King in the last years of his life as only a civil rights leader," said Charles Payne, the Sally Dalton Robinson Professor of History and director of Duke's African & African-American Studies Program, as he opened the labor discussion. "The last two years of his life he was an anti-militarist leader and a pro-labor rights leader."
Other panelists were Nick Wood, a representative for the Farm Labor Organizing Committee; Dave Winstead, a steam fitter at Duke and union member with Local 465; and Roona Roy, a Harvard senior and member of her school's student labor movement.
Students who want to enact change on their campuses, such as ending university contracts with sweatshops and securing "living wages" for campus workers, need to forge partnerships with employees, unions and community groups, Roy said.
"As students, we cycle through very quickly," she said. "It's difficult for students, on their own, to maintain the watchful eye that is necessary."