R-eflections

Troy Duster

I regret that I am unable to attend today's festivities and provide a testimonial
in person to the contributions that Gerry Berreman has made to the Berkeley campus,
and to the intellectual life of both the disciplines of anthropology and sociology.
Since there are so many people gathered to read papers that will undoubtedly make
these points, I will just say a few brief things from another angle.

I fi-rst heard of Gerry through our mutual friend, Aaron Cicourel. They had
been graduate students together at Cornell, and Aaron had told me that when I got to
Berkeley, 35 years ago, I should look up this guy Berremian in Anthropology. That
wasn't necessary. It was the 1960s in Berkeley, and Berreman and I would meet at
anti-Vietnam war rallies, at countless plannn committees and panels, at Teach-Ins
on the relationship between the War and domestic racism--and then ultimately have
our common fates ratified in that inevitable weapon of choice, the dreaded petition.
There are only a few around who will remember this, but Gerry and I were among the
21 Berkeley faculty who signed a petition insisting that Berkeley faculty receive the
same fate as students arrested for their anti-war demonstrations in Sproul Plaza. The
story appeared in a prominent place in the local newspapers, and for a brief moment it
appeared as through we might be known as "The Berkeley 2l1."

The authorities ultimately backed away from that confrontation, and for at
least one moment, "the good guys" won.

I tell the story nmainly because it crystallizes something about Gerry's
integration of his understanding of the world with his actions. Indeed, when I began
to read his scholarly articles on social stratification in India, I was struck by the
consistency of his position as a scholar, intellectual, and political being. Many of my
colleagues in the social sciences had taken fine scholarly positions in print, but were
rarely if ever seen "in print" when it came to local politics. Many other colleagues
had taken fine positions on the vital social issues of the day, but it was not their
scholarly specialty. Gerry combined the two, and this made him a particularly
valuable ally. He could explain how and why the Dalits of India did not share the
conventional wisdom put forward by the Brahmins, that there was a general
acceptance of caste stratification because of the spiritual unity achieved under
Hinduism. And in a flash, we could see the parallels between the ideologies of power

in the two nations, and the sharp parallel to the ante-bellum South of the United
States ~the argument that "only outside agitators" were stinrrig up the otherwise
complacent at the bottom of the social and economic order.

346                       Kroeber Anthropological Society Papers  No. 89/90

But again, others will say more (or have already said more) about his
scholarly contributions and insights. So I will only say one last word about his tennis
game! We have been tennis doubles players off and on for many of these years,
although the pace has certainly trailed off. It may surprise some of you to learn that
on the tennis court, Gerry has the flair of Agassi and the serve reminiscent of
SamprasOr is it the flair of Sampras and the serve reminiscent of Agassi? Well,
once he retires, we will have the time to get back out on the court and sort this out.