The lecture provides a critical review of the subjects of Democracy and Race in the modern world. Through this lecture, Jelani Cobb takes his audience through the American history while challenging them to visualize racial inequalities that are still identifiable in the society. From a general view, one would merely describe American as a nation of equality. However, Cobbs warns his audience against such a misinformed view by encouraging them to think deeply about the real situation that characterized the American community. In justifying his argument, he provides a comprehensive account of some racially inclined incidents that have happened in the recent dates. In particular, he explores such events from a broader view by coining them as evidence to America’s long-aged history of continuous racial inequality (The Half-Life of Freedom).
Cobb further challenges his audience to remain alert and embrace high creativity when reviewing history. He argues that most people often misinterpret history by viewing it as a simple account of events that happened in the past. He notes that a mere view of history in the context of racial inequalities in the country would review a simple chart with twists instead of a continuous slope line that one would expect. In this context, Cobbs argues that history is unsuccessful in developing our society when its negative side is ignored. He poses a question to his audience where he seeks to know whether America can now claim to be post-racial country following the fact that it has an African American president. Responding to this concern, he notes that America can still not claim to be in such an advanced state regarding racial inequalities because serious disparities are identifiable. This is evident in the witnessed pronounced differences between the white and other races in relation to housing, education, employment and medical care among others. Interestingly, Cobb describes a trend of racial inequality in the country that has existed under the Obama leadership. The trend initiated when people of other races started to move areas dominated by white. With the increasing numbers of people of other races and the decreasing numbers of the whites, the crisis began erupting between the people and the police. This is because the police mainly acted to safeguard the interests of the white, which often triggered conflicts. However, the government would seem reluctant to incriminate the cops for such violence (The Half-Life of Freedom).
Cobb challenges the youths to maintain their youthful optimism to be able to realize real democracy. He feels that the society can only grow and avoid replication of tragic incidents such as the ones that have been witnessed in the past by individualizing the fight against racism. Accordingly, he challenges everyone to make a personal commitment to associate with individuals of other races. Furthermore, one needs to understand how history has shaped the modern society. In particular, Cobb encourages each person in attendance to be proactive and assume the responsibility of fighting any form of discrimination. This entails engaging and confronting their leaders actively in instances where there is infringement of any person’s rights disregarding his or her ethnic background (The Half-Life of Freedom).
Cobb further articulated his argument by showing the pictures that he had captured in protests at Ferguson. This triggered some questions from his audience, which he keenly responded to by citing practical examples in the modern world. For instance, he responds to the argument that American is the land of freedom and brave, by failing to concur with the assertion. However, he motivates his audience by noting that they needed to work hard to develop America into such a land. He strongly felt that America had not yet attained such a state, but he believes in her potential of developing to get to that state. He also provides the unique definition of the idea of civil war and proposes strategic ways for addressing the indirect practice of racism (The Half-Life of Freedom). His approach is mainly based on simple and practical actions such as vowing to end racism personally, in contrast to sophisticated theoretical strategies proposed by other thinkers.
The lecture provides an educative and well thought piece that comprehensively analyses the issue of racial discrimination in the current century. In line with Cobb’s view, it is clear that racial discrimination is still an issue of concern to the present generation. Unfortunately, some aspects of such disparities are hard to recognize. This is dangerous as it means that some people continue to suffer discrimination while we ignorantly assume that we have managed to establish a democratic and equitable society. There is the need of rethinking about the issue of racial discrimination from a broad perspective. The lecture challenges us to see how the idea of racial disparities has changed to assume a new unique dimension that is hard to recognize. It is apparent that only individuals who remain alert to such transformation will be in the position to identify incidents of racial discrimination. I strongly concur with Cobb’s argument that individualizing the war against discrimination where every member of the society commits to engage freely with others, is the most practical approach of addressing racial disparities in the modern world.
Works Cited
“The Half-Life of Freedom.” Web. 21. March. 2016. http://www118.zippyshare.com/v/ViDxqbll/file.html. Audio.
