Marshalltown Columnist Ken Black Thinks We’re Communists

Angela Davis is our commencement speaker this year at Grinnell College, and nobody I know here is 100% pleased.  The presidential candidates we invited all turned up their noses at us (perhaps expectations at commencement are too high, and some folks are bound to leave at least a little underwhelmed), and I guess Angela Davis was somewhere on the list.

Recently, Ken Black at the Marshalltown Times-Republican took us to task for being a little too communist for him (emphasis added):

Of course, I know that Grinnell College is one of the most liberal in the United States. That goes without saying.

The pricey and very exclusive college has long been a bastion for those with communistic tendencies, but rarely have they been so bold about it as they are now.

Recently, I received a press release from the college, seeking publicity over its commencement keynote speaker. Of course, this is probably not the kind of press coverage they wanted, but any coverage is good coverage, right?

Angela Davis will be speaking. The name may not mean much to you. It didn’t mean much to me until I continued to read the first paragraph of the press release.

“She was associated with the Black Panther Party in the 1960s and 1970s, as well as the Communist Party of the United States of America,” the press release stated. “Still an activist, she now works for … prison abolition.”

Let’s take these one by one, shall we?

And then he takes them “one by one.”  He hates the Black Panthers for being anti-capitalism and anti-authority.  He hates the Communist Party because its goal was supposedly to devastate our country, Soviet style.  And he hates the prison abolition movement because he doesn’t quite understand it.

But believing in academic freedom isn’t just for communists.  Pretty much all of our Founding Fathers believed in it.  Sure, it takes a certain level of self-awareness and maturity to know how to listen to what others say, consider it carefully, and decide not to agree with it, but doing that on a regular basis is a worthwhile endeavor.  It’s how we learn in college, and hosting an important thinker like Angela Davis makes sense in that context.

To quote a famous Grinnellian who was also probably too much of a Communist for Ken Black, “Have you no sense of decency, sir?”

4 comments April 9th, 2007