In a interview with Chris Hedges published today on truthdig, moral philosopher, democratic intellectual, and the black face of the democratic socialist movement Cornel West speaks openly about his feelings of disillusionment about Barak Obama. While feeling misled by the Obama phenomenon, West also says that he needs to take responsibility for "reading into it more than was there."
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Conel expressed some disappointment with Obama over not returning his unsolicited bi-weekly prayer/phone messages.
>“I used to call my dear brother [Obama] every two weeks. I said a prayer on the phone for him, especially before a debate. And I never got a call back.
Cornel eventually ran into Obama in South Carolina at one of his few hundred campaign stops and was able to quote the Presidents comments to him.
‘Brother West, I feel so bad. I haven’t called you back. You been calling me so much. You been giving me so much love, so much support and what have you.’ And I said, ‘I know you’re busy.’
The disappointment continued when it came time to attend the inauguration...
I couldn’t get a ticket with my mother and my brother. I said this is very strange. We drive into the hotel and the guy who picks up my bags from the hotel has a ticket to the inauguration. My mom says, ‘That’s something that this dear brother can get a ticket and you can’t get one, honey, all the work you did for him from Iowa.’ Beginning in Iowa to Ohio. We had to watch the thing in the hotel.
Despite the President choosing to offer the tickets to someone far less fortunate than Cornel, it still hurt...
“What it said to me on a personal level,” he goes on, “was that brother Barack Obama had no sense of gratitude, no sense of loyalty, no sense of even courtesy, [no] sense of decency, just to say thank you. Is this the kind of manipulative, Machiavellian orientation we ought to get used to? That was on a personal level.”
The interview now moves on to the political differences.... Cornel was expressing disappointment with the fact that Obama was picking old hands to run the various departments and summed it up with these words.
It was very much going to be a kind of black face of the DLC [Democratic Leadership Council].”
I bolded this one to highlight the careful choosing of words. There is a difference between Obama being "the black face" of the DLC and "It being a kind of black face of the DLC"
One is a person being represented as a diversity move, the other is a performance, for all the nuance people are allowing, this one shouldn't be lost on anyone.
The interview got back to the personal after Cornel was surprised to have a leader of the free world black man, address some of the public comments Cornel had been making unchecked up to this point by the subject. He paraphrases Obama's comments.
“He makes a bee line to me right after the talk, in front of everybody,” West says. “He just lets me have it. He says, ‘You ought to be ashamed of yourself, saying I’m not a progressive. Is that the best you can do? Who do you think you are?’
Back to policy discussion....no? more personal? seriously?
“I think my dear brother Barack Obama has a certain fear of free black men,”
but why does he have this fear?
“It’s understandable. As a young brother who grows up in a white context, brilliant African father, he’s always had to fear being a white man with black skin. All he has known culturally is white. He is just as human as I am, but that is his cultural formation. When he meets an independent black brother, it is frightening. And that’s true for a white brother.
He fears black men because he is a part of white culture, that's what Cornel West says although he didn't bother to confirm it.
This is an image of Cornel at the time he got cussed out
LOL's
You can critique Obama without me insulting you but you can't talk spit for three pages and call him dear brother because he doesn't return your calls, didn't give you a ticket to the inauguration, and doesn't hire the people you want him to hire. He's the PRESIDENT and your a professor.
I believe the Mr. West will regret this interview as it truly does expose how deeply personal it is for him. He admitted it himself but I think after reading it, he will see how ugly it got.
I've read the article about three times now and it is severly lacking policy debates aside from grand yet vague ideas and aside from switching out Krugman and Stiglitz for the current team there is not much in the way of ideas that can be put in to place.
The black face of the democratic socialst party/progressive movement has spoken....and as usual it's for himself.