A Nation of Cowards?

In a speech before the Department of Justice commemorating Black History Month last week, Attorney General Eric Holder said that when it comes to the issue of race in America we are still “a nation of cowards.” Referring to the “historical experience of black people in this nation” Holder argued that to get to the heart of this country’s history we must examine its racial soul. Not surprisingly he has been both attacked and applauded for his remarks.

Maureen Dowed in the New York Times wrote that Holder is wrong because, “We have just inaugurated a black president who installed a black attorney general,” and that, “We need leaders to help us through our crises, not provide us with crude evaluations of our character.” What some are calling a crude evaluation, others are calling a candid analysis of the institutional and structural racism that continue to shape America’s history.

We speak to Manning Marable, Weston Professor and Director of the Center for Contemporary Black History at Columbia University and the author of Living Black History: How Reimagining the African-American Past can Remake America’s Racial Future, JLove Calderon co-editor of We Got Issues!: A Young Women’s Guide to a Bold, Courageous and Empowered Life, David Billings a core trainer at the People’s Institute for Survival and Beyond, and Leith Mullings, Distinguished Professor of Anthropology at CUNY and the author of On our Own Terms about the question of race in the twenty first century.