In this lecture given on May 4th, 2015 in Olympia, WA at The Evergreen State College, Dr. West discusses many issues orbiting thematically around four questions W. E. B. Du Bois discussed wrestling with his whole life. In "The Ordeal of Mansart" Du Bois laid out the questions listed below and in this lecture, Dr. West uses these questions to cover topics as far-reaching as the Black Lives Matter movement, poverty, social-economic-racial disparities in America, drone strikes, wall street, social movement tactics and strategies, militarized police, Jim Crow (past and present), cultural trends and the prison industrial complex.
Du Bois from "The Ordeal of Mansart":
How shall Integrity face oppression? What does Honesty do in the face of deception? What does Decency do in the face of insult? How does Virtue meet brute force?