Pulitzer Prize-winning columnist Leonard Pitts, Jr. talked about the importance of critical thinking and keeping the faith to a packed auditorium at Linfield College on Tuesday, Feb. 21.
The talk, “Where Do We Go From Here?” concluded Pitts’ day-long visit to campus, during which he met with students and spoke in classes.
Leaving people with hope has become difficult for Pitts, who calls himself an optimistic person by nature.
“I’ve found myself changed,” he said. “I have not hope; I offer you only faith.”
Syndicated nationally, Pitts’ twice-weekly newspaper column reaches millions of readers, tackling issues from current events to race relations, pop culture, social issues and family life. The visit was timed to coincide with Black History Month.
Some excerpts from the talk:
On hope:
Leaving people with that sense of hope has become a rather difficult prospect for me in recent years, when it comes to race relations.
Too many of us in this country are too committed not just to hatred, but to ignorance.
Here again stands the question: Where do we go from here? How do I give people hope I don’t feel myself?
This is hardly the first time the future seemed to close in on African Americans like a storm. And yet, through it all, we got by.
The mistake I made, that many of us made, is to believe in the permanence of progress.
On change and faith:
The recipe for progress and change is to be part of the continuum. Do the work and have faith.
Change isn’t a sudden lightning bolt, but an ongoing process.
A society grows great when old men plant trees whose shade they know they shall never sit in.
The work of change, like the work of planting a tree, becomes a work of faith.
Don’t worry if you can’t see the curve of the horizon from down here on the road. Just work. And have faith.
On the importance of critical thinking:
You must force yourself to evaluate information.
As my momma used to tell me, you can’t raise grown folks. It’s a generational thing. You have to start with young people and teach them about critical thinking.
We have generations now of people who have abandoned or never knew how to think critically. My job as a teacher isn’t to teach you what to think, but how to think.
I am energized when I come across something that is thoughtful and contradicts what I believe.
On the future:
We have seen what is coming. We were told what was coming. Yet we let it come.
I believe the future of the country is being written right here, right now.
This is not a fight about ideology. This fight is about whether reason is still important to us, whether decency still matters.
The one good thing is that good people have awakened.
Hope feels too facile and simplistic for this moment. This moment when I fear bad things are coming, when bad times are upon us.
It occurs to me that my America is worth fighting for.
I find that I have determination greater than ever before.
