Episode SummaryIn this episode, Dr. Cornel West and Professor Tricia Rose nail down issues of white allyship, undoing invisible racist ideologies, and the hallmarks of possessive investment in whiteness with their beloved guest Professor George Lipsitz. They provide commentary on the leadership of the Black freedom movement of the past and present as well as the “slow violence” of racism rooted in power, interest, and property. Dr. Cornel West and Professor Tricia Rose hold office hours to offer their takes on the removal of racist monuments and its role in the larger work of dismantling systemic racism. This is an episode of The Tight Rope you will want to return to again and again.  Cornel WestDr. Cornel West is Professor of the Practice of Public Philosophy at Harvard University. A prominent democratic intellectual, social critic, and political activist, West also serves as Professor Emeritus at Princeton University. He graduated Magna Cum Laude from Harvard in three years and obtained his M.A. and Ph.D. in Philosophy at Princeton. West has authored 20 books and edited 13. Most known for Race Matters and Democracy Matters, and his memoir, Brother West: Living and Loving Out Loud, West appears frequently on the Bill Maher Show, CNN, C-Span, and Democracy Now. West has appeared in over 25 documentaries and films, including Examined Life, and is the creator of three spoken word albums including Never Forget. West brings his focus on the role of race, gender, and class in American society to The Tight Rope podcast. Tricia RoseProfessor Tricia Rose is Director of the Center for the Study of Race and Ethnicity in America at Brown University. She also holds the Chancellor’s Professorship of Africana Studies and serves as the Associate Dean of the Faculty for Special Initiatives. A graduate of Yale (B.A.) and Brown University (Ph.D), Rose authored Black Noise: Rap Music and Black Culture in Contemporary America (1994), Longing to Tell: Black Women Talk about Sexuality and Intimacy (2003), and The Hip Hop Wars: What We Talk About When We Talk About Hip Hop and Why It Matters (2008). She also sits on the Boards of the Nathan Cummings Foundation, Color of Change, and Black Girls Rock, Inc. Focusing on issues relating to race in America, mass media, structural inequality, popular culture, gender and sexuality and art and social justice, Rose engages widely in scholarly and popular audience settings, and now also on The Tight Rope podcast.  George LipsitzProfessor George Lipsitz is an American Studies scholar and Professor Emeritus of Black Studies and Sociology at the University of California, Santa Barbara. He received his Ph.D in History at the University of Wisconsin, and his current studies focus on social movements, urban culture, African American music, inequality, the politics of popular culture, and Whiteness Studies. Lipsitz has authored numerous books including The Possessive Investment in Whiteness, How Racism Takes Place, Midnight at the Barrelhouse, Footsteps in the Dark, A Life in the Struggle, and Time Passages. Lipsitz also co-authored The Fierce Urgency of Now: Improvisation, Rights and the Ethics of Co-Creation. He serves as a Chairman of the Board of Directors of the African American Policy Forum and is a member of the Board of Directors of the National Fair Housing Alliance. Lipsitz is an intellectual pioneer and respected figure of the Black freedom movement. 

 Insight from this episode:Questions we must ask ourselves about self definition as the Black freedom struggle and crisis of the current movement passes to another stage. A reframing of “white allyship” and “white fragility” in the context of George Lipsitz’s scholarship on the possessive investment in whiteness. Details on the coordinated crimes of the Pentagon, Wall Street, and the police, specifically the connection between violence abroad and violence “at home.”A call to move beyond symbolic victories when structural changes are needed.