Critiques and Comparison

December 14, 2021

Derrick Bell on Randall Kennedy Randall Kennedy on Derrick Bell

The Strange Career of Randall Kennedy.docx

Derrick Bell's critique of Randall Kennedy from 1998

Ostensibly a review of Kennedy's Race, Crime, and the Law (1997), Bell also brings up "Racial Critiques of Legal Academia," an article published in the Harvard Law Review in 1989 (reprinted in 2020). That article may be accessed HERE and there is an HLR overview HERE.

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Here is another interesting Kennedy reference in one of the chapters of Bell's Faces at the Bottom of the Well, titled The Rules of Racial Standing. (Kennedy appears midway on page 145.)

BellThirdRule 2021-12-02_12-46-51.pdf

In Kennedy's new book, Say It Loud!, one of the most important essays, is Derrick Bell and Me. Kennedy explains the reason for the essay: "Bell was an intrepid and influential scholar-activist who deserves careful assessment. I try to offer that along with an account of my relationship with him. Mentor, friend, and adversary, he was a significant presence in my life. We had a complicated association, marked by private amity, public conflict, and, near his end, partial reconciliation."

It is a long essay, composed of six segments. Those below are representative: Sections II and IV. If you'd like to read the entire essay, please purchase the book OR you might like to read a 2019 draft version that was updated for inclusion in the 2021 book.

KennedyDBPartII2021-12-02_12-49-18.pdf

Derrick Bell and Me Section II (pp. 42-52)

KennedyDBPartIV2021-12-02_12-50-51.pdf

Derrick Bell and Me Section IV (pp. 67-73)

If you're interested, an early draft version of the complete Derrick Bell and Me may be accessed HERE.

A pessimist? An optimist?

Within the diverse, always-changing spectrum of black American racial thought can be discerned two broad camps: the optimists and the pessimists - those who believe that blacks are (or can become) members of the American family and those who believe that blacks will always be outsiders; those who predict that we shall overcome and those who conclude that we shall not.

...Randall Kennedy, "Shall We Overcome? Optimism and Pessimism in African American Racial Thought," Say It Loud!, p.3

BellIntroduction2021-12-02_12-45-26.pdf

In the Introduction to Faces at the Bottom of the Well, Bell briefly outlines the basis for his conviction that racism is permanent. (pp. 1-17)

The first essay in Kennedy's Say It Loud! is titled Shall We Overcome? Optimism and Pessimism in African American Racial Thought.

As with most of the essays in this book, there are multiple sections. The first and second are history-telling. One is a story of pessimism, its proponents and the basis for their convictions; two, the optimists and their story.

Below are sections three and four. Section three highlights the Obama election and its aftermath; four, Kennedy's personal story, his changing relationship with optimism and pessimism. (pp.21-30)

KennedyShallWeParts3and42021-12-03_13-29-26.pdf

More opportunities to view and hear Bell and Kennedy...

( 4:18)

(6:42)

Derrick Bell and the National Visionary Leadership Project

Founded in 2001, the National Visionary Leadership Project's (NVLP) mission is "to develop the next generation of leaders by recording, preserving, and sharing the stories of extraordinary African American elders - Visionaries - who have transcended barriers, shaped American history, and influenced the world through the rich African American tradition of social change."

The NVLP has recorded and preserved more than 330 high-quality professional video interviews with extraordinary African-American elders, age 70 and older, through its Oral History Archive, housed in the US Library of Congress. Derrick Bell is among those interviewed.

Take a look at the selections on the left. If you would like more, click (HERE). In the top right corner of the video shown there, click the playlist (1-10) to see other segments of the interview.

Randall Kennedy in conversation with Congressman Jamie Raskin on September 9, 2021. Raskin, U.S. Representative for Maryland's 8th Congressional District, and his son, Tommy, were both students of Kennedy's at Harvard Law School.

After an introduction by the co-owner of Politics and Prose bookstore in Washington D.C., Kennedy shares some interesting reflections on his family and growing up in D.C. This is a wide-ranging and engaging conversation.

(1:01:12)

We're repeating this video in case you weren't able to view it for our Kennedy session:

On September 17, 2016, Randall Kennedy delivered this talk on The Desegregation of Medicine, as part of Harvard Law School's Diversity and U.S. Legal History Series. The lecture series was a companion to the Diversity and U.S. Legal History Reading Group.

You will see that this is a topic about which Kennedy feels strongly and you will have the opportunity to observe his skill in the role of professor.

(49:06)