An Interview With
Dr. Mary Lewis
by
Teresa Sublett,
Gibbs Columnist
_______________
Dr. Mary Lewis is a Laney College Professor
and Anthropologist, specializing in West African and African American
Societies and Cultures. She took her Doctorate of Philosophy from the
University of Washington.
Ms. Teresa Sublett was able to catch up with her for this in-depth interview
a week before the September 11 tragedy. This interview took place at Laney
College in Oakland after Dr. Lewis's class.
Q: Dr. Lewis, you are a brilliantly educated Black woman; what is your life philosophy?
A: I don't know that I have a well-articulated philosophy of life. If I do have one I must say that I think it changes as I continue this journey. The model that I use for my life in the most general sense is really the life of W.E.B. Du Bois. What fascinates me and attracts me to his life is his passion for justice for his people, which I share. In a more practical sense it was his ability to change positions, to look at positions anew as indeed he learned more and as conditions changed. I think that's what I try to do. Those are ideas, concepts I try to use in structuring my own life--as much as it's structured. But I also want an unstructured life also, because that's the fun in life.
Q: You are a teacher here at Laney College; what is your teaching philosophy?
A: In terms of teaching, it seems to me that the most important thing that can be done in a classroom, a part from imparting certain kinds of competencies, is to impart the ability to think critically. Now, in order to think critically someone has to have certain other kinds of skills. The minimal skill that is required is that one must, at the very least, be literate in his or her own language. It seems to me that, that's the key to everything else because if you are literate you can, as a matter of fact, teach yourself if you don't have others around you who to teach you. You can teach yourself much of what you need to know. But you have to at least be literate.So literacy is the key.
Now one of the interesting things that we've seen is a steady decline in literacy not just among African Americans but among all Americans generally. For African Americans and for me I find it even more devastating because that means we have a lot of people now who are cut off. But the question that I ask myself, as do indeed many other educators of color, is how was it possible for us not to notice early on, at least twenty years ago, fifteen years ago, that we were dealing with so many people who were, in fact, only semi-literate? Had we done the kind of remediation that's necessary to correct this problem, we could have been insulated much earlier.
Now remediation is not just a matter of controlling your local schooling, it's much more fundamental than that. We don't have significant numbers of people who know how to teach people to read. One would see the picture of Americans not being able to read and think critically and say: "Oh my God how did that happen?" And if you are a conspiracy theorist, and I'm prone to be, you think that there is some grand scheme somewhere. But I think the grand scheme is there too; I am quite certain that the decision was made long ago that a significant numbers of people in this society would be written off and some are expendable. And that is a shame; it's inhuman. Yet all of those kinds of things we try to deal with. I try to deal with it as best as I can. But it is absolutely a crime. And in my mind it is akin to the de-skilling of African Americans at the turn of the twentieth century. African Americans moved into the twentieth century having a whole range of skills that we they were not able to use in this economy. We were, therefore, de-skilled, and I see this whole move to not educate young people as having that same kind of function.
Q: Do you think that the de-skilling happened during the time of integration?
A: Oh, most certainly. And it was at that point that we should have taken the first action. We should have gone to the barricades at that point. And I am quite certain though if one goes through African American educational journals that undoubtedly somebody picked it up that early. And it just didn't get an audience. Because our attention was focused someplace else, so we weren't taking care of the things that were most basic. And that's a lesson to. And that's a very good lesson that we have to keep reminding ourselves about.
Q: There seems that there is a new surge of Black Republicans bashing Black Democrats, what do you think about that?
A: Yes, the neo-conservatives. Well, I think the neo-conservative movement among African Americans is, on one hand, a reflection of the kind of patronage that's available in the Republican Party. That is as long as they can find somebody to bash Democrats, if they can find someone to bash affirmative action, if they can find someone to bash those programs that are intended to assist people of color, they most certainly will provide that person with a platform to do what they were selected to do. On the other hand, I do believe that there are a core of African Americans who are truly conservative and who are very comfortable with the kinds of programs that are formulated and put in place, implemented by Republican administrations. They don't see how Republican programs harm peoples of color; so they're quite comfortable.
Q: Do you think that Colin Powell is one of those people?
A: Colin Powell is interesting because he is, as a matter of fact, an almost liberal Republican in the sense that the programs that he knows will be harmful to African Americans and again to others peoples of color, and poor people, for that matter, generally he shies away from. Now, look at his son.
His son is a perfect example of a Black Conservative who is quite comfortable articulating the most extreme conservative kinds of positions. He's the Commissioner of FCC. So he's for the complete deregulation of networks. Now, what does that mean? For him that means, if you've got the money to buy up these networks there's no reason that you shouldn't. If someone says to him, but look there are a lot of people who would like a different kind of program and they don't have the money to buy radio time or television stations or to buy into communications, so what do we do about them, his strictly conservative response is the market place determines who participates. (See Black Conservatiives)
Q: Survival of the fittest?
A: Sure, social Darwinism comes home to haunt us. As opposed to his father, I think he is quite comfortable taking those kinds of very extreme positions that he knows would be detrimental to people. And it causes him no shame.
The rest of this interview will be printed next week.
