James McBride’s Storytelling & Social Commentary
On March 1st and 2nd, the Wabash Community welcomed author James McBride to campus. His New York Times Bestseller The Color of Water takes up a week-long discussion of “identity” in the first year of the C&T replacement course, Enduring Questions. McBride tells the story of his “white” mother who successfully put twelve children through college. Her relationship with an African American man was the source of her perseverance and love in a time when this was not acceptable.
As a result, James McBride was flown out to campus to…well…tell his story? On Wednesday, March 2nd, McBride gave a talk during the Enduring Questions time slot to all freshmen. In a seeming mish-mash of random political rhetoric, elementary philosophy, and some accounts of his book, McBride delivered a disconnected and intellectually starved talk. McBride set the stage for a fulfilling questionnaire time over his story by prefacing, “After I write a book, I forget what I wrote!”
McBride certainly did not hide what he felt was politically the problem with society’s views on the poor, however. He elicited much emotion claiming that “we tell poor people in America to get a job…that’s just the biggest load of bullshit I’ve heard in my life.” This, of course, was before McBride clearly addressed the issue of politics becoming too “personal” in America. Apparently it’s okay to assert illogical political rhetoric. I was waiting to hear why McBride felt the way he did. Of course, I was again without an explanation. Again I pondered another thought: why McBride was chosen over all the other modern authors on the Enduring Questions reading list to deliver a mandatory talk for my fellow freshmen. McBride let his idealistic emotions cloud his intellectual analysis of socioeconomics. It is proven that through capitalism, one is able to “get a job,” and eventually through hard work and sacrifice work up to a living that perhaps has more comfortable concerns than continual fear of starvation. You see, McBride fuses those who are unemployed and want to “get a job” with those who are unemployed and perhaps neglect to put in enough effort or sacrifice to “get a job.” This is problematic, logically fallacious, and not appropriate for a talk on “identity.”
Of course, this was not the last mention of socioeconomic issues in this overwhelmingly fulfilling discussion. McBride talked about the universal importance of living a good life. He cited a local Journal Review article that told an inspiring story of a local Crawfordsville resident who joined the Peace Corps to work in Ghana, after retiring. This is a wonderful story of what some would perhaps consider a milestone to ensure a life that was worth something. However, what if one chooses not to do this? Has a devout and successful attorney in the Crawfordsville community that retires to his beautiful estate not lived a life that was worth something? According to James McBride, in that scenario, one could look back at life and say, “I’ve done nothing.” Soon after, McBride discussed how our society instills in us that we all must become successful monetarily and become lawyers [McBride’s example]. While this is a seemingly popular philosophy, it still leaves the question of why it is so bad to become an attorney or a doctor for the sake of following the tradition of Wabash success.
Doctors and lawyers contribute an incredible amount to society, and for many, this life decision was not marked by the ideal, romantic, fluffy deliberations that McBride would encourage us to ponder. Many choose the well-paved path of law or medicine (in the Wabash realm) because they enjoy studying public policy or biology. Is there something wrong with a Wabash man who comes to this wonderful campus simply because he wants to follow the traditions that he values, and perhaps go into a field that is considered taboo in the academic community such as a lawyer or doctor? I am not saying that we should follow some carbon copy life path, but simply asking: why is it wrong if we do choose to walk down a path that is not labeled as eclectic or non-conventional by others?
I am fully confident that the “powers that be” of Enduring Questions had higher expectations for this disappointing and juvenile story-telling session. By the way, there is no sarcasm in that statement. For an academically-focused committee, it is surely disappointing when the advertised intellectually questioning, challenging, thought-provoking speaker turns into a mere story-teller. Therefore, I know our leaders of EQ had to have expected a higher quality speaker than was actually delivered. There is nothing wrong with the message of James McBride. However, it is critically important that the Wabash community recognize that spending money to bring a story-telling speaker to campus is essentially like bringing a story-teller to a high school or middle school class. Respectfully, Mr. McBride’s message would have been just as well understood by a fourteen year-old. Point being: Mr. McBride was delivering a different message than what was expected…I hope.
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