An Evening of Erudition in the de Tocqueville Trad
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30 Oct 2018 |
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 St. Cloud
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The Rotary Club of St. Cloud Presents
An Evening of Erudition in the de Tocqueville Tradition
A Continuance of Civil Discourse and Rotary Camaraderie
Seeking Wisdom and Understanding
One Evening in Autumn
Version Number Seven
Tuesday October 30, 2018
~Six o’clock in the evening until ~nine o’clock in the evening
Hors d’oeuvres, Beverages, Schnacks
Where: At the Home of Tarryl (and Doug) Clark
2511 15th Street North ~ St. Cloud, MN 56303
Who: All 141 Rotarians are cordially invited/ included – Rotaractors, too, but we need you to please reply
There are two (2) books, the first book, Separate and Unequal, the Kerner Report, 1968, is largely expository but enormously instructive looking back fifty years.
The report's most famous passage warned, "Our nation is moving toward two societies, one black, one white—separate and unequal."
The second book, Between the World and Me, Coates, 2015 is gut-wrenching/ explosive/ troubling/ way outside most comfort zones.
We will read each/ both and then discuss/ expound.
Each book is much, much easier to read than last year's selection, by the way.
Interested? Want to know more?
320-224-4492 MichaelAllenMullin@gmail.com
Of note: Read these books even if you can’t participate in the evening… worth your while.
KERNER CONCLUSION 1968: One of the first witnesses to be invited to appear before this Commission was Dr. Kenneth B. Clark, a distinguished and perceptive scholar. Referring to the reports of earlier riot commissions, he said: I read that report. . . of the 1919 riot in Chicago, and it is as if I were reading the report of the investigating committee on the Harlem riot of '35, the report of the investigating committee on the Harlem riot of '43, the report of the McCone Commission on the Watts riot. I must again in candor say to you members of this Commission--it is a kind of Alice in Wonderland--with the same moving picture re-shown over and over again, the same analysis, the same recommendations, and the same inaction. These words come to our minds as we conclude this report. We have provided an honest beginning. We have learned much. But we have uncovered no startling truths, no unique insights, no simple solutions. The destruction and the bitterness of racial disorder, the harsh polemics of black revolt and white repression have been seen and heard before in this country. It is time now to end the destruction and the violence, not only in the streets of the ghetto but in the lives of people.
“It is hard to face this. But all our phrasing—race relations, racial chasm, racial justice, racial profiling, white privilege, even white supremacy—serves to obscure that racism is a visceral experience, that it dislodges brains, blocks airways, rips muscle, extracts organs, cracks bones, breaks teeth. You must never look away from this. You must always remember that the sociology, the history, the economics, the graphs, the charts, the regressions all land, with great violence, upon the body.”