Cornel West is Right & Wrong!
Yesterday, we posted an audio clip from a recent interview with Cornel West (shouts out to Allhiphop’s Chuck Creekmur for the heads up). The respected public intellectual and scholar was a guest on NPR’s “Talk of the Town” and let’s just say that the usually unflappable thinker got a little flustered. Apparently, he and President Obama had an uncomfortable moment sometime back, and West felt that the President was talking to him like he was a “cub scout.”
Of course, Cornel West is a top notch polemicist (aka debater) and I believe that much of this was political theater. West understands that NPR is a powerful outlet, and it’s clear that he used the moment to jump on his soapbox. Plus, West has been a pretty strong critic of Obama since the campaign, and I don’t believe that the Princeton Professor is simply hating on Obama because he can’t stand seeing another black man shining. The philosopher typically tries to push Obama’s moral compass, and remind him that as a person of color, he is tied to a much longer history of social justice. West acknowledges that the President has to govern, but at the end of the day he has more power to build a “Beloved Community” than any other president in US history. (Obama has acknowledged this in the past, the clearest example of this is his “Joshua Generation” speech during his campaign.)
And I am not like a lot of people who think that we shouldn’t be pushing or criticizing Obama. After all, he himself has said that it is our responsibility to “hold” him to be a stronger leader. So push on Mr. West!!
But while I don’t have a problem with most of what Cornel West said during his interview, there was one comment that threw me off a bit. During the conversation, which often got a little fiery, Tony Cox questioned Cornel West if he was an “everyday” person, given the fact that he works at any Ivy League institution. West quickly defended himself, basically saying that he was an average person like everyone else.
Now, I have interviewed Professor West, and I even had an opportunity to be on a panel with him this past spring at Florida A&M, and let me tell you something. Cornel West is far from everyday…he is a rock star. At Flordia A&M students rushed up to him as if he were a member of the Afro’d Beatles. But the pop icon hasn’t earned his fame by writing rap hooks, he is a thinker!! So although he may be deeply connected to his humble roots, “Brother West” stopped being an average person a long time ago. And that’s fine with me. Communities of color need more role models who have enough juice to push the president. We need to do a better job of celebrating thinkers and scholars, especially those as brilliant as Cornel West, even when we disagree with them.
