I was called an intellectual earlier today and I’m still trying to make sense of it. It was on Derrick Boazman’s “Too Much Truth” radio program in Atlanta. As serendipity would have it, I tuned in today while returning with my sons from a late afternoon lunch in Midtown Atlanta. Through pure coincidence, Boazman called my name while responding to a caller’s request regarding the real story behind DC Comics’ Superman. The next caller, after hearing Boazman reference my name, talked about my international community travel videos on YouTube, specifically in Viet Nam and Australia. In assessing the work placed in public domain via social media, the gentleman caller deemed me one of today’s Intellectuals. Ever at the ready, I called in to the show when Boazman sent me a text a few minutes later. The first caller was, hopefully, satiated by my response to the “original” Superman story. However, the thought of being considered an Intellectual by the second caller — and possibly others — has left me somewhat in a quandary.
I remember when Academy Award winner Denzel Washington stated that winning the NAACP Image Award was more special than having won an Oscar. “When you are honored by your own people,” Denzel remarked, “then that is truly an honor.” With Washington’s words in mind, I respect the second caller’s labeling. If you are familiar with my work, then you know I have labored in the community vineyard for nearly 25 years. While peers and classmates from Morehouse continued their education immediately after graduation, I continued working in the community establishing volunteer activities on AUC campuses before offices of community service or engagement were ever thought of. It would be another fourteen years before completing my doctorate and entering the academy while, at the same time, many whom continued their education had already reached associate faculty status. They knew book: I knew community. They still know books: I still know community.
In my opinion, that IS the difference with the public intellectual. I couldn’t hold a candle against those heavyweights who have volumes — and I do mean volumes — on King, Du Bois and Wright. Their years of research, lecture and discourse and debate are unparallel. My years of community work, civic engagement, grassroots organizing, and youth development are unparalleled as well. This, I believe, is what the second caller was reflecting upon when placing my name out there with other well-knowns as “an Intellectual.” Having this terminal degree, I better understand book, easily deciphering what is and what ain’t. Too, I better understand community, oftentimes at odds as to which books to assign for my class readings. The heady books miss the mark for some of my academic discourse, while pop culture misses it for other classes. Many times I find myself at the other end of the spectrum with these Intellectual giants (as they have been deemed by the establishment). They have endowed chairs, research assistants, teaching assistants, tenure, well-moneyed sponsors, etc. Their writings, to me, reflect such. As they pull from the Great Blue stratosphere, I tend to write and communicate with a certain earthiness, in hues of brown, black and green.
Aspirations for endowed chairs like the heavyweights? Not really. As a teen and as a Morehouse student, I never wore someone else’s name on my back, as in sports jerseys. I believe in self, and neither want nor need another’s approval or head nod for my actions, while assuming credit for the hard work therein. That, I learn from community; a lesson books could only theorize about. This notion of independence was shared in a recent conversation with the publisher of this very magazine. Munson Steed and I chopped it up over a discussion regarding on whose terms most people operate.
So, Denzel, I agree with your assertion. To be honored by your own — even if it’s a single caller on a radio program — it is still indeed an honor. I would invite any of those heady academics into the community if they so desire, here in the States, or to any of the six continents to which I’ve traveled. I grant them their just due in the hallowed halls. They are the supermen and superwomen. Here in the streets where gown meets town, however, I rule the skies. –submitted by dr. mike weaver
photo captions:
1) Drs. Richard Benson (Spelman College), Akinyele Umoja (Georgia State University), Larry Jackson (Emory University), Nathan McCall (Emory University and author of New York Times bestselling author) and Mike Weaver (University of South Florida) at Larry Jackson’s booksigning of The Indignant Generation, Auburn Avenue Research Library in Atlanta.
2) Locals in Viet Nam; and
3) the Arthur Langford, Jr. Teen Leadership Class of 2010 at the Sixteenth Avenue Baptist Church in Birmingham, Ala.
