Dr. James Peterson is an MSNBC contributor and director of Africana studies and sssociate professor of English at Lehigh University. While discussing the role of black intellectuals in public discourse, Peterson referenced a February article in the New York Times by Dr. Eddie Glaude entitled “Black Intellectuals Have Sold Their Souls,” and addressed his own record as more than just a pundit for the 24-hour news cycle. He stated that his own status on MSNBC should not obscure his work in the community.
“When I read Eddie’s piece, I was hurt by that piece,” Peterson admitted frankly. “But I didn’t take it as a personal attack on me—Eddie knows me, he’ll call me up and tell me that.”
Dr. Peterson went on to say that he doesn’t view himself as a “public intellectual.”
“I don’t make any claims to be any kind of public intellectual or black intellectual. When you see me in public, I’m representing my family,” he explained. “What I see as the work is the actual work, not talking about it so much. When I’m in the Metropolitan Detention Center, sitting amongst killers, MSNBC is not there. Neither are my colleagues at the Academy. But I’m not asking those people to be there. That’s just how I’m built. I’m built to do that work.
“That’s how I was raised. I was raised to be connected to the community,” said Peterson. “To serve the community and to work in the community; that’s what I do. That’s not going to be very public for me because TV cameras don’t follow me there.”
“That doesn’t mean I don’t take the platform of MSNBC and the opportunities [I’m given] seriously. Like I said, I was hurt by Eddie’s piece, but I took it to heart that I do need to think more about things, I do need to realize the platform that I have. I do need to understand that, while my family is very much engaged in symbolic nature of this moment of the first black president, I have to work with other intellectuals to push for substance in the policy. It’s good for me to have people who I know love me to critique me. I accept those critiques wholeheartedly. I read the piece and thought about it, and thought about how I get back to the work in a way that tries to honor what Eddie Glaude is doing.”
Glaude’s New York Times piece was specifically critical of the new rush of African American cable news contributors. “The idea of the intellectual who reads widely and deeply and who critically engages the complexity of our times has been supplanted by the fast-talking ‘black Ph.D. pundit’ who strives to be on CNN, Fox or MSNBC,” he wrote.
But Peterson makes it clear that he is not simply a black face happy to be visible on a major news network.
“I’ve been blessed to have been given this incredible platform and I take it very seriously,” Dr. Peterson says. “The work that I’m doing in the community is not the work that’s going to be publicized. If you want to know what I’m doing, please hit me. I need help. If you have a cause or effort that’s consistent with the things I’m interested in — education, dismantling the mass incarceration system — I will work with you on those things. That’s the work that I do when I’m not on MSNBC or in some predominantly white classroom and I take great pride in that work; and I don’t care if that work is public or not.”
