Ideology, Class, and Scholarship

Yesterday I read two passages on ideology and class that demand joint reflection. The first is from E. Franklin Frazier’s essay “The Failure of the Negro Intellectual” (1962/73). The second is from James Cone’s book God of the Oppressed.

Thinking with Frazier

Frazier’s essay is a scathing indictment of Black middle-class intellectuals in the U.S. Frazier argues that these intellectuals are class-based assimilated sell-outs alienated from the masses of Black people. These scholars set the “intellectual orientation of educated Negroes” despite “[sloughing] off everything that is reminiscent of its Negro origin and its Negro folk background” to achieve acceptance in U.S. society. Moreover, these intellectuals appear unaware of how much their assimilationist efforts require restricted thinking: “In fact, with the few exceptions of literary men [sic], it appears that the Negro intellectual is unconscious of the extent to which his thinking is restricted to sterile repetition of the safe and conventional ideas current in American society.” In this context, racist assimilationist money talks. “Most Negro intellectuals simply repeat the propaganda which is put out by people who have large economic and political interests to protect.” And in this context, these intellectuals fail to note, let alone address, the concerns and questions arising from within Black communities in the U.S.    

This brings us to our passage. Frazier blasts Black middle-class intellectuals for failing to produce philosophers and just philosophies for Black people. He writes:

We have no philosophers or thinkers who command the respect of the intellectual community at large. I am not talking about the few teachers of philosophy who have read Hegel or Kant or James and memorized their thoughts. I am talking about men who have reflected upon the fundamental problems which have always concerned philosophers such as the nature of human knowledge and the meaning or lack of meaning of human existence.

We have no philosophers who have dealt with these and other problems from the standpoint of the Negro’s unique experience in this world. I am not talking about the puerile opportunistic rationalizations of the Negro’s effort to survive in a hostile world. The philosophy implicit in the Negro’s folklore is infinitely superior to the opportunistic philosophy of Negro intellectuals who want to save their jobs and enjoy material comforts.

The philosophy implicit in the folklore of the Negro folk is infinitely superior in wisdom and intellectual candor to the empty repetition of platitudes concerning brotherly love and human dignity of Negro intellectuals who are tyrants within the Negro world and never had a thought in their lives.

This brings me to say something of what Negro intellectuals or scholars have failed to accomplish as the intellectual leaders of Negroes.

They have failed to study the problems of Negro life in America in a manner which would place the fate of the Negro in the broad framework of man’s experience in this world. They have engaged in petty defenses of the Negro’s social failures. But more often they have been so imbued with the prospect of integration and eventual assimilation that they have thought that they could prove themselves true Americans by not studying the Negro.

Since integration has become the official policy of the country they have shunned more than ever the study of the Negro. They have remained intellectually sterile while propounding such meaningless questions as: Should Negro scholars study the Negro? Should Negro painters paint Negro subjects? Should Negro writers and playwrights write Negro novels and plays about Negroes?

This is indicative of the confusion among Negro intellectuals. But more important still, it has meant that Negro intellectuals have cut themselves off from a vastly rich source of human experience to which they had access.

Class assimilation has come at great cost. By surrendering to the white-gaze-determined, procrustean dictates of post-Brown “racial liberalism,” middle-class Black intellectuals have lost touch with the needs and resources of the broader Black community, and have failed to offer it the intellectual labor they owe. Personal desire, class, and class-informed racist ideologies conspire to render these intellectuals failures. It is hard to love your gente and mammon.

Thinking with Cone

James Cone’s person and work should cause us to qualify Frazier’s broad-brush critique. Granted, Cone wasn’t an academic philosopher or literary man (Cone repeatedly said that he couldn’t write like Jimmy Baldwin). But Cone was a theologian deeply committed to doing theology for Black people and with the resources of the broader African diaspora.

Cone recognized that class-based ideologies could impede his work. In God of the Oppressed, Cone defines an ideology as “deformed thought, meaning that a certain idea or ideas are nothing but the function of the subjective interest of an individual or group” (p. 83). Like sociologists of knowledge, Cone distinguishes between particular ideologies and total ideologies. He explains this distinction by quoting Karl Mannheim: “Whereas the particular conception of ideology designates only a part of the opponent’s assertions as ideologies, and this only in reference to their content, the total conception calls into question the opponents total Weltanschauung (including his [sic] conceptual apparatus), and attempts to understand these concepts as an outgrowth of the collective life of which he partakes.” Cone uses this framework to argue that class-based ideologies are particular ideologies that led people to interpret “Scripture from an axiological perspective that contradicts the divine will to liberate the poor and the downtrodden.”

Cone unpacks his position on the impact of class-based ideologies in our second passage. I quote Cone in full.

Ideology on the particular level is also a danger for persons in the oppressed community who achieve social and economic prosperity. For personal reasons, they conveniently forget the central element of the divine story. This was the problem for the ruler who asked: “Good Teacher, what shall I do to inherit eternal life?” (Luke 18:18 RSV). Of course, he knew the commandments, and had observed them from his youth. But by asking the question he also had sensed a contradiction between his life-style and the truth of Jesus’ presence. “One thing you still lack,” Jesus said. “Sell all that you have and distribute to the poor, and you will have treasure in heaven; then come, follow me” (Luke 18:22 RSV). But his riches prevented him from living the truth revealed in Jesus’ presence. (p.85)

Cone’s explanation comes after his sustained reflection on the biblical teachings about God’s special concern for the poor and oppressed, and Jesus’ locating his ministry within this concern. Indeed, Jesus’ applying Isaiah 61:1-2 to himself is a hermeneutical guide for Cone.

The spirit of the Lord is upon me because he has
anointed me,
he has sent me to announce good news to the poor,
to proclaim release for prisoners and recovery of sight
for the blind;
to let the broken victims go free,
to proclaim the year of the Lord’s favour. (Luke 4:18-19 NEB)

The rich ruler knows such passages and what they reveal about God and Messiah. Yet when Jesus tells the ruler to sell all his possession, distribute the earnings to the poor, and participate in Jesus’ liberative work by following him, the ruler declines. It is hard to love God, Messiah, and mammon. Or, as Jesus put it, “How hard it is for the rich to enter the kingdom of God!” (Luke 18:25 NIV)

Concluding Thoughts

These passages from Frazier and Cone haunt me. They remind me of the dangers and temptations I face as a middle-class Latino Christian scholar striving to love mi gente, the oppressed, and the Church catholic through my writing and teaching. It’s easy to succumb to the white gaze. It’s easy to lose touch with the poor and working-class members of my Latino and Anglo families. It’s easy to “obey God” while failing to fully commit to participating in Jesus’ liberating, redemptive work. It’s easy to misread Scripture and circumstances by reading both through the distorting lens of racist, classist ideologies. And it’s easy to miss all these points.

Lord, give me eyes to see and ears to hear. Jesus, empower me to participate in your liberating, redeeming work. Spirit, free me from ideologies and desires that easily ensnare while keeping me united to Christ, the lover of me, mi gente, and the Church. Amén.