Word: cosmopolitanization
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Dates: during 1980-1989
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...Crimson piece entitled "Parochial Moorings Don't Bog Down," in which he berates Professor Martin Kilson's "Cosmopolitan Imperative," Christopher J. Farley claims to speak for all Black students at Harvard. There are those of us, however, who feel he has misrepresented not only the Professor's argument but also the entire Black population of this country. His piece falsely portrays the latter as a culturally and politically monolithic group. Falling prey to a "romantic realism," Mr. Farley contrasts the inherent honesty, virtue, and simple "traditional customs" of Blacks with the materialistic, so-called, "yuppie ethic" of whites...
Obviously, the author fears the loss of identity which might result from Blacks' adopting the "materialistic" or "cosmopolitan" stance he feels the professor is advocating. "To ask Blacks to become 'cosmopolitan' is a corruption of what it is to be a Black American." This rather lofty statement would be true if Kilson's definition of "cosmopolitan" agreed with Mr. Farley's misinterpretation of the term...
...Cosmopolitan does not entail forsaking one's "roots" or one's "poorer bretheren"--as Mr. Farley condescendingly refers to the economically deprived members of our race. On the contrary, the "cosmopolitan imperative," rather than being a call to assimilate, to deny our origins in the ruthless pursuit of personal advancement, is instead a plea to Black students to work within the social and political structures of this country to bring about improvement. Professor Kilson feels that Black students have the responsibility of alerting non-Blacks to a problem that is not only ours but theirs as well: poverty and discrimination...
...become something they are not; on the contrary, the Doctor is adamantly against both assimilation and the abandonment of one's social responsibility. He leaves it to the discretion of the student as to how much he or she should "temper" his or her parochial givens with cosmopolitan interactions...
...absorbed by some sort of pinocytosis. Why should it be different at Harvard than it is in American society? The United States is a country which prides itself on cultural differences and a society that thrives on the interface of its varied cultural groupings. To ask Blacks to become "cosmopolitan" in a corruption of what it is to be a Black American. No gain, whether educational, influential or financial, in worth the denial of what one is. That is a corruption of the spirit...