To return to the right side of history, African-American law professors might go back to black tradition, to the wisdom of our founding father, Dean John Mercer Langston.
To place the excesses of critical race theory in perspective, one might study the thoughts of the “original black law professor,” John Mercer Langston. Born of a white slave planter and a freed black woman, Langston became the first Dean of Howard Law School on October 12, 1868. For nine years, he instructed the first generation of black law school students. Did Langston rail against structural racism? Did Langston embark on the Hunt for Black Identity? Did Langston blame the Man in all things large and small?
Some could argue that the thoughts of a Victorian Age leader cannot help us today. He did not know the prejudice facing today’s law students. And our ability to detect racism today is more highly advanced. Our critical race scholars have dug deep into the subconscious. And eureka! They have found evidence of unconscious racism. As a result, no amount of effort can help us since the Man, at a conscious and unconscious level, is ever present. We are doomed before we try.
If you think I have created an unfair strawman argument, consider that I had a conversation this week with a well-educated African-American woman. She refused to believe that America would ever elect a black President. Why, I asked? She replied, “because I believe in racism.” Her belief gave her comfort, solace, a way to understand the world.
Leo Strauss, a University of Chicago philosopher, wrote that changing our thoughts about modern thought might protect us from the excesses of contemporary thought. We presume current thoughts must be superior to thoughts in the past. And certainly the black experience with anti-slavery efforts and civil rights supports this point. However, when everyone thinks alike, thoughts tend to slip towards the extreme. There are no conservative or moderate black law professors, save for a few hardy souls. Therefore, if everyone is leftist, proposing more and more extreme ideas becomes a way to stand out from the left-leaning herd. I credit law professor Cass Sunstein for this insight.
Strauss wrote that the “ancients” could teach current thinkers. How so? If you accept the premise that the ancients were wiser and more insightful than we are, then we can read the ancients in order to better understand ourselves since we are simply products of ancient thoughts and ideas. Common sense when guided by tradition, “itself the heir to generations of practical wisdom when it came to the art of living a humane life,” might offer genuine inspiration for current thought.
In simpler terms, radicalism is wrong. And, to paraphrase Irving Kristol, what is wrong with radicalism is radicalism — “a metaphysics and a mythology that is woefully blind to human and political reality.” To return to the right side of history, African-American law professors might go back to black tradition, to the wisdom of our founding father, Dean John Mercer Langston.
How did Langston view the world?
Did Langston rail against structural racism? He had good reason to fixate on systemic inequities. Langston lived until the age of four in a slave state, Virginia. The law school at Ballston Spa refused to admit Langston until he agreed to pass for a Frenchman or Spaniard from the West Indies, Central or South America. Langston refused to enroll unless he could be accepted as an African-American U.S. citizen. The law school rejected him. The Ohio Bar refused to admit Langston until the judge could satisfy himself that Langston could “be construed into a white man.” Langston faced contemptible racism, not imagined slights.
Langston argued that African-Americans should be uncompromising on black citizenship and voting rights. He urged “nothing for the Negro because he was black, but because he was a man, he would ask everything for him that other men had.” For years, Langston brought the message before black audiences that self-reliance and well-directed energy would uplift the race. He asked only for a “fair opportunity” from whites. He asked of black freedmen that they acquire education, property, and moral character towards the end of a “well ordered and dignified life.” For Langston, a fair opportunity to compete went hand in hand with self-reliance.
Did Langston embark on the Hunt for Black Identity?
Black separatists will find little moral support in Langston. Langston had a strong sense of self in which being of African descent was one component. There is no evidence that Langston invested hours in mulling over his identity. Nor did he offer the Hunt for Black Identity as a blueprint for his law students at Howard. Nonetheless, Dean Langston must have inspired the hopes and dreams of his students to incredible levels.
Within a year of practicing law in Ohio, Langston had a lucrative practice. By 1855:
His clients were all white persons at this time and chiefly those who acted politically within the Democratic party. Such persons did not seem however to fear Mr. Langston’s color, nor on account of it to question his ability and skill. They sought him and his services as if they had the largest respect for him personally and full confidence in his learning, ingenuity and fidelity.
– From the Virginia Plantation to the Capitol, John Mercer Langston, pages 134-35
Even more extraordinary is Langston’s election as Township Clerk for Brownhelm, Ohio in April of 1855. Charles Fairchild, a leading white citizen, nominated Langston because he was the “best qualified man in town” for the position. Not only did Langston win but he received the most votes of anyone on the Liberty party ticket. And consider that Langston was the only African-American living in Brownhelm at the time! The Hunt for Black Identity would have been nonsense to Langston.
In an interesting footnote, Langston later moved to Oberlin where his law practice continued to flourish. African-Americans did not patronize his services out of fear of prejudice from all-white courts and juries. It would take six years for Langston to secure his first black client. Once again, the Hunt for Black Identity would not have served Langston well.
Langston’s success is disturbing to those who “believe in racism.” It can’t be. It doesn’t make sense. How can an African-American be doing these things before the Civil War? Black law professors have a worthy founder in John Mercer Langston.
Did Langston blame the Man in all things large and small? No. He sought full civil rights for African-Americans. He worked against slavery because he saw slavery as the root of prejudice. And at Howard Law School, he appointed a staff of three white law professors to begin the education of black law students. He used his connections with President U.S. Grant to secure daytime jobs for his law students. I have found no evidence that he taught his students any version of critical race studies. He taught his charges the law so they could go out and practice law for the good of the community. All ten students in his first law class would graduate and be admitted to the Bar.
If Langston had blamed the Man in things large and small, he could not have cultivated a working relationship with President Grant. He would not have worked with an all-white staff of law professors. And he would have alienated his Board of Trustees.
The philosophy of Langston provides a viewpoint for dealing with the world. Langston felt that African-Americans should primarily rely on the traditional means of self-help. They should be hardworking, frugal, and temperate in the effort to accumulate property and acquire education, “grow strong in knowledge, secure character and influence, and use them as moral levers to elevate yourselves to the dignity of manhood and womanhood.” If our current law professors and thinkers can adopt this neoconservatism, then we may yet return from the bland and formulaic space in which critical race theory now resides.
If neoconservatism means returning to the best in our tradition, then “neoconservatism provides the moral and practical answers to the malaise of [black legal thought] as a whole . . ..” Dean Langston speaks to us across the ages. Will we listen?
Mr. Twyman, like a skilled boxer, has excellent timing. His essays of late arrive at a perfect juncture in time — when increasing numbers of blacks are exploring the negatives of negative thinking.
His example of Langston will inspire some, yet those invested in division politics and dedicated to the search for black identity will use the man's success as an example of selling out.
The proof? Langston was successful and respected by whites. He clearly did something to betray his race.
Keep it up Mr. Twyman. The tide is with you and your efforts to point out that the recipe for achievement and respect remains the same as it always has been.
It strikes me that the matter of convincing some to follow Langston's lead is a bit like getting a style-concious Paris Hilton to pull on some "un-cool" boots when walking in snake country. The ugly footwear may not conform to her overly bankrolled sense of style and self, yet it is the practical and only choice for safety, and makes possible the success of her journey.
If I read him correctly, Mr. Twyman's point is that many blacks refuse to pull on the white man's boots, which means they are:
A. Missing opportunity/excluding themselves.
B. "Keeping it real" and getting snakebit — variously dying from the bites or blaming them on "the man."
Whether A or B, he becomes proof of discrimination to those in the race division industry, be they seeking power, wealth or votes.
It's a vicious circle back to the same starting point, kept that way by stigmatizing blacks who traverse the path to success by conforming to logic and outfitting themselves properly, celebrating only those who, often due to their athletic or artistic talents (in some cases their gangsta talents), managed to make the trek to fame and fortune without compromising their "blackness."
Has anyone estimated the price blacks pay to "keep it real?"
Thankfully, some, like Mr. Twyman, are running the numbers.
Wonderful article, I am particularly struck by the suggestion that psychology, generally the paternalistic tool of Social Worker liberals, is perhaps one of our nation's most insidious varieties of racism. This, in fact, is why I believe Brown v. Board of Ed did not yield the benefits it should have. I am not at all convinced that the doll study proved much of any thing, other than to pander to liberal guilt. As a consequence, African American children are clearly not receiving the level of education that white children receive. Psychological presumptions about African American children make it vastly more difficult to recognize much less complex factors standing in the way of fair and adequate education for all students. Teachers are allowed to demand more from their white students without fear of charges of racism. And so teachers do demand more of their white students. For all of its problems the one true beauty of No Child Left Behind is it is genuinely color blind, since it rejects psychological excuses for poor performance.
It is interesting how almost all neocons are ex-Marxists (like Horowitz) or ex-Leftists. You also see Neomarxist terminology rife in their writings: like "regime change."
"Neoconservatism" is just really Wilsonian liberal internationalism repackaged. There is not a thing conservative about it.
Russell Kirk for good reason said that neoconservatives have "[mistaken] Tel Aviv for the capital of the United States."
Cato,
As humorous as it is to see you directly copy the same comments in response to each and every article posted, what exactly does NeoMarxism or your favorite Russell Kirk quote have to do with what was written in the article? Did you even read it? Or did you just see "Neoconservatism" in the title and decide you needed to give us yet another glimpse at the breadth of your intellect?