‘Black Intellectuals in the Age of Crack’: Organic Responsibility, the Race-Class-Gender Nexus, and Action Paralysis in the <i>Boston Review</i> Roundtables, 1992–1993

The existing research on the role of intellectuals in alleviating suffering has overlooked contributions by prominent Black from United States early 1990s. Two roundtable debates co-organised under auspices Boston Review at Harvard and MIT 1992 1993 response to Eugene Rivers’ essay “On Responsibility Intellectuals Age Crack” were central these contributions, counting a star-studded line-up including bell hooks, Cornel West, Glenn Loury. Participants explore US, debating what they can should do combat oppression domination. In this article, I recover context debates, reconstruct their arguments, make case for major historical political significance. comparatively interpret two roundtables, identifying three points convergence. First, participants begin Gramscian conception organic intellectuals, developing further defend need collective intellectual praxis. Second, race-class-gender nexus plays structuring very possibility affecting social change. Third, subscribe significantly pessimistic action paralysis, indicative relative powerlessness debate addressing structural oppression.