Melissa Harris-Perry on Cornel West:"self-aggrandizing, victimology sermon deceptively wrapped in.."

[Pirate Smile]

Cornel West v. Barack Obama

Melissa Harris-Perry

Professor Cornel West is President Obama’s silenced, disregarded, disrespected moral conscience, according to Chris Hedge’s recent column, “The Obama Deception: Why Cornel West went Ballistic.” In an self-aggrandizing, victimology sermon deceptively wrapped in the discourse of prophetic witness, Professor West offers thin criticism of President Obama and stunning insight into the delicate ego of the self-appointed black leadership class that has been largely supplanted in recent years.

West begins with a bit of historical revision. West suggests that the President discarded him without provocation after he offered the Obama for America campaign his loyal service and prayers. But anyone with a casual knowledge of this rift knows it began during the Democratic primary not after the election. It began, not with a puffed up President, but when Cornel West’s “dear brother” Tavis Smiley threw a public tantrum because Senator Obama refused to attend Smiley's annual State of Black America. Smiley repeatedly suggested that his forum was the necessary black vetting space for the Democratic nominees. He needed to ask Obama and Clinton tough questions so that black America could get the answers it needed. But black America was doing a fine job making up its own mind in the primaries and didn’t need Smiley’s blessing to determine their own electoral preferences. Indeed, when Smiley got a chance to hold candidate Clinton “accountable” he spent more time fawning over her than probing about her symbolic or substantive policy stances that impacted black communities. Fiercely loyal to his friend, Professor West chose sides and began to undermine candidate Obama is small and large ways. Candidate Obama ceased calling West back because he was in the middle of a fierce campaign and West’s loyalties were, at best, divided. I suspect candidate Obama did not trust his “dear brother” to keep the campaign secrets and strategies. I also suspect he was not inaccurate in his hesitancy.

-snip-
Furthermore, West’s sense of betrayal is clearly more personal than ideological. In Hedges' article West claims that a true progressive would always put love of the people above concern with the elite and privileged. Then he complains, “I couldn’t get a ticket to the inauguration 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... We had to watch the thing in the hotel.”Let me get this straight--the tenured, Princeton professor who collects five figures for public lectures was relegated to a hotel television while an anonymous hotel worker got tickets to the inauguration! What kind of crazy, mixed up class politics are these? Wait a minute…

-snip-
As tenured professors Cornel West and I are not meaningfully accountable, no matter what our love, commitment, or self-delusions tell us. President Obama, as an elected official, can, in fact, be voted out of his job. We can’t. That is a difference that matters. As West derides the President’s economic policies he remains silent on his friend Tavis Smiley’s relationship with Wal-Mart, Wells Fargo, and McDonald's--all corporations whose invasive and predatory actions in poor and black communities have been the target of progressive organizing for decades. I have never heard him take Tavis Smiley to task for helping convince black Americans to enter into predatory mortgages. I’ve never heard him ask whether Tavis' decision to publish R. Kelley’s memoirs might be a less than progressive decision. He doesn’t hold Tavis accountable because Tavis is his friend and he is loyal. I respect that, but I also know that if he were in elected office the could not get off so easily. Opposition research would point out the hypocrisy in his public positions in a way that would make him vulnerable come election time. As a media personality and professor he is safely ensconced in a system that can never vote him off the island. I think an honest critique of Obama has to begin by acknowledging his own privileges.

http://www.thenation.com/blog/160725/cornel-west-v-barack-obama

edit to add a couple more because...why not:

Moore Award Nominee

"I think my dear brother Barack Obama has a certain fear of free black men. 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 feels most comfortable with upper middle-class white and Jewish men who consider themselves very smart, very savvy and very effective in getting what they want,” - Cornell West.

The classic West bullshit: "my dear brother". I am sorry to say I put West in the same category as Gingrich as intellectuals whose reputation as such I could never find any serious evidence for. And I have really tried hard to understand West, charming and eccentric as he is.

No save get, as the computers used to say.

http://andrewsullivan.thedailybeast.com/2011/05/moore-award-nominee-2.html

Cornel West Uncovers The Disturbing Truth



You are familiar with the hypothesis that Barack Obama genetically inherited a disposition toward radical Kenyan anti-colonial thinking through his absent father. Now comes Cornel West, inevitably expressing his bitter disappointment with Obama's corporate sellout ways, explicating the opposite hypothesis:

“I think my dear brother Barack Obama has a certain fear of free black men,” West says. “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. When you get a white brother who meets a free, independent black man, they got to be mature to really embrace fully what the brother is saying to them. It’s a tension, given the history. It can be overcome. Obama, coming out of Kansas influence, white, loving grandparents, coming out of Hawaii and Indonesia, when he meets these independent black folk who have a history of slavery, Jim Crow, Jane Crow and so on, he is very apprehensive. He has a certain rootlessness, a deracination. It is understandable.

“He feels most comfortable with upper middle-class white and Jewish men who consider themselves very smart, very savvy and very effective in getting what they want,” he says.

He's a secret believer in Kansan pro-colonialism!

http://www.tnr.com/blog/88521/cornell-west-uncovers-the-disturbing-truth

[Kdillard]

1. Huge k and r.

[Pirate Smile]

32. Hi. I'm replying here because this is a really good letter to Sully I wanted to post in this thread.

Obama As A "Third Culture Kid"

A reader writes:

You are indeed right regarding Cornel West. He is a an articulate, well-read, pseudo-intellectual who plays the part of the black Yoda well, but is ironically very provincial. His world is literally black and white which limits his analytic powers and makes him ineffective as a true intellectual and impotent as a true force for change. Contrast this with Barack Hussein Obama.

Obama, is what we call, a TCK—A Third Culture Kid. TCK’s grow up as the children of missionaries, or as military brats, or as the children of businessmen. It means that you grew up during your early developmental years in a culture outside of your parents’ home culture.


In our family we are quite familiar with this term since both my wife and I are second generation TCK’s and we are now raising one (Costa Rican/American born and raised in Europe and China). Between us we’ve been to 70 countries and lived on 4 continents.

TCK’s are usually unable to view the world in a simplistic dualistic way. On the contrary, they are usually over-achievers, get advanced degrees, and are infinitely curious about the world. They can accentuate different facets of their personality and experiences based on who they are talking to—and it’s not fake. This is the reason Obama really could connect and appreciate rural farmers in Illinois, fit in with the Harvard crowd, and work as an effective community organizer in Chicago’s South Side. Obama is the classic TCK. This is why he represents the new America so well—he is post-racial, globalized, and a great example of America’s own Third Cultural nature. It also helps to explain why he is so loathed by provincial Middle America.

Yet, you notice that Obama seems to deeply understand them better than they seem to understand themselves. He can be Kansan, Chicagoan, Bostonian, and fittingly really enjoys Hawaii. His key speeches including the Philadelphia race speech, his famous 2004 Democratic Convention speech, and his Cairo speech show that propensity to truly get all sides. This also helps to explain why he’s not a closet Muslim terrorist. He is the anti-thesis of Osama Bin Laden with his provincial, dualistic, desire to homogenize the world by creating a Muslim Caliphate. This is the exact opposite of who Obama is at his core. Osama looked for his father figure in the provincial world of 7th Century and 20th Century Arabia. Obama looked to go beyond his father’s provincial, naïve aspirations and became a little bit of everything.

The liberal label doesn’t fit Obama either. As you have pointed out, like Reagan or Thatcher, at his heart he is a pragmatist. Like a true TCK, he doesn’t romanticize any one culture or ideology. He understands that there is good or bad in everything. Yet another reason why he can also be called the anti-Bush who along with Cheney is trapped in a juvenile Manichaeism.

Look closely at Sarah Palin and George W. Bush. They are not just anti-intellectual but they are deeply provincial people that made sure not to expose themselves to much outside of their comfort zone. Sarah bounced from college to college unable to really fit in anywhere but Wasilla. Not even the Governor’s mansion felt like home to her so she left that too. Bush grew up in the upper crust East Coast and found his identity as a simple, “aw’ shucks” Texan who just knows what to do in his gut. He can be detached from the real world when necessary. TCK’s have no choice. They must engage the world.

This is one reason why I do not believe Sarah Palin will ever really run for President: She is deathly afraid of the world. She’s fine with fame and money (and pretending to be relevant assures the cash flow)—but she will always need to hide in the tundra from this complicated world. No surprise that on her recent trip to India, she mainly stayed in the hotel and the mall and got out of there as soon as possible.

I wish people would realize that we have a President that was born in the USA, raised in Asia and multi-cultural Hawaii, and who lived in Harlem, and went to uppity Harvard and then spent a lot of time in African-American ‘hoods. Oh, and he’s driven up and down the rural highways of Illinois hundreds of times. Furthermore, much of his life was spent in obscurity, so he had to live amongst us normal people paying back student loans. Even as a Senator he lived in a run-down apartment in D.C. This is why I never worried about Obama’s lack of experience. All he’s had is experience. Even Bill Clinton, who entered into the political upper-class networks by the time he was at Georgetown, looks provincial and cut-off from real America compared to this. Have we ever had a President who has lived in this many American worlds and cultures and succeeded in all of them?

Cornel West and Sarah Palin have a lot in common. They speak the language of a time gone by and really get very little of what is going on.

http://andrewsullivan.thedailybeast.com/2011/05/obama-as-a-third-culture-kid.html

I'm going to post it as its own thread too. (edit to add - here it is http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=433x675024 )

I've read quite a few posts/letters about TCK and how it fits President Obama so well but it isn't something widely understood.

[Kdillard]

47. Thank you. Great read that hit the nail on the head.

[BlancheSplanchnik]

91. Ooo, excellent post, along with the OP...glad you're posting it as a stand-alone.

realllly interesting!! Thanks!

[nonperson]

148. This whole TCK thing

President Obama certainly sounds like the other side of the coin from George W. Bush but we're getting very similar results. The same people who ultimately benefited from Bush's narrow knowledge of the world are benefiting from Obama's broad knowledge of the world. The same people who benefited from Bush's lack of intellect are benefiting from Obama's exceptional intellect.

How do Obama's intellectual defenders like Melissa Harris-Perry explain this? How can two so dissimilar leaders produce such similar results?

Bush was intellectually incapable of interpreting this complex world while "TCK" Obama is so intellectually capable of interpreting that same complexity that he becomes lost in the minutia to the point where he loses track of the simplest equation, right and wrong, by continuing and even expanding the policies of his predecessor, refusing to turn back the myriad errors that led us to this point.

I agree with Professor West on the many factual points in his argument regarding the course President Obama and the current Democratic leadership have taken yet Ms. Harris-Perry has chosen to largely ignore those facts and attack Mr. West on personal grounds. This is the sign of a person who can't refute the facts presented.

This whole TCK thing sounds like an excuse to try to be everything to everyone but President Obama is being everything only to a very narrow group of Americans so far while leaving the great majority behind suffering through the detritus of the world his predecessor created, and he is doing so by continuing and expanding Bush policies while refusing to hold Bush or any of the oligarchs responsible for the crash this nation is suffering through responsible. Instead he gives even more ground to the very select few through actions like extending the Bush tax cuts for the rich while appointing people like Alan Simpson to decide the fate of the rest of us. Continuing wars that are clearly being waged only to protect corporate interests worldwide while continuing to suppress the rights we were once guaranteed in the Constitution. Refusing to implement true health care reform and instead once again compromising with people whose sole purpose is to destroy the entitlements that are the heart of this nation's social contract with workers, women, children, the poor, or anyone other than the select few who are richer than at any time in this nation's history yet can only ask for and continue to get MORE while the rest of us face a future so bleak it could serve as the plot from some dystopian novel.

I'm not buying the TCK thing. It's just another excuse to cover the fact that the rich are getting richer while the middle class and poor are told to forget about education, health care, jobs, retirement, and any and every other benefit of a supposedly modern industrial society.

[Kind of Blue]

167. Well, that's not the argument West is making.

What incensed a lot of us is that he's using incredibly nasty psycho-babble to explain away who the president is and why he does what he does. That's the point of contention. We're arguing two different things. Sure we can argue to exhaustion the president's actions and everyone has every right to criticize, but to lump it with the "he's not that into me" whine is to sound like Limbaugh, Trump, Palin, et al.

As far as the TCK thing being an excuse, IMO, it's not being used as a cover for anything other than to directly refute West's idiotic assertions of who the president is for more reasoned analysis. It has, IMO, nothing to do with being everything to everyone.

[Tarheel_Dem]

2. Two increasingly irrelevant assholes who no longer speak for my community.

Cheers to Ms. Harris-Perry. Tavis killed his own career within the AA community, and I think he blames the president. Rec.

[Name removed]

3. Deleted message

Message removed by moderator. Click here to review the message board rules.

[Tarheel_Dem]

11. Deal in hyperbole much? Where did I say "only Obama". Reading

comprehension, not your strong suit, I guess? :shrug:

[JI7]

19. nope, but Obama is more popular among most black people than

those who attack Obama. and it depends on what type of criticism also.

[EC]

6. Agreed

Cornell West irritates me so much, I can't listen to him. So if he is intelligent, I couldn't tell you because he loses me at his "my brother" spiel...

And Tavis is a sell-out. Just as she says - he's beholden to Wal-Mart etc.


I like Ms. Harris-Perry and could listen to her for hours.

[uponit7771]

8. Yeap, few if ANY listen to Tavis because of his tantrum...he can't even point to anything else being

...the issue outside of Obama not coming to his forum...it makes him and West seem so petty.

[jaysunb]

30. Amen !

:thumbsup:

Tavis is quickly heading for a seat next to Larry Elder & Clarence Thomas.

[Number23]

35. This whole Cornell vs. Obama BS has been illuminating

It is so very telling to see the support that Dr. West gets on DU, when black folks of just about every persuasion (upper class or not, intellectual or not) are about two seconds from running his ass out of town.

At this point, he just needs to go somewhere and be quiet. I would never in a million years have guessed I'd ever be so mortified and so disgusted by Cornell and the fact that his entire screed basically starts off with "Obama never called me back" makes me literally hang my head and weep with shame and embarrassment for him. He's acting as though he has lost his damn mind.

[Tarheel_Dem]

52. "he has lost his damn mind".

:thumbsup:

You speak for me. And anyone I know IRL, who even knows WTF Cornel West is, has pretty much come to the same conclusion. I hate to say it, but I honestly think Dr. West believes Obama isn't a real black man because of his parentage, and the fact that he's not descended from slaves. But that's just my take. And what's with all the Jew talk? Has he always sounded so anti-semitic?

[Pirate Smile]

54. Melissa Harris-Perry called him a birther because of that (on Ed's Show). She said he is essentially

attacking the President for who he is because he has a white mother.

ProSense down below links to Adam Serwer's post on this which deals with this issue:

To Be Black, And Also A "Mutt"

-snip-
West speaks in the language of common humanity, but his verbal assumptions undermine the charade. “He feels most comfortable with upper middle-class white and Jewish men who consider themselves very smart, very savvy and very effective in getting what they want,” West says, as though interracial intimacy, finding oneself "at home" with a "them" were, by definition, a form of self-hatred. My mother faced such accusations, having married my father in the late 1960s. Time has a way of excusing ignorance, but at least insults hurled in the street do not make any pretense to intellectual respectability. West believes what he is saying is profound. It is petty.

In response to perceived social slights, West severs Obama from any individual claim to blackness while inviting him to accept the terms of an implicit contract by which his lost negritude might be restored. For mixed people, blackness is not accepted as a fact of existence but something negotiable, a question of membership to which those whom are Truly Black may grant you access. This gives the game away of course, the reality of race as an invention, if one we have no choice but to live with.

Growing up mixed you sometimes face a kind of confusion. Those around you press you to make a choice about how much of yourself you're willing to give up, how much you're are willing to pretend in order to claim membership in one club or another. West demands to know why Obama isn't sitting at the black table in the dining hall, while reminding him that he's only welcome there by his graces. What you eventually learn is that peace is not something the "gatekeepers" have to offer and is the last thing they want you to find. Eventually you learn the rules of the game are silly and destructive, and who you are can't be negotiated either way.

To some degree this is just a part of adolescence, but most people have grown out of this kind of racial pageantry by middle age. West has not, but perhaps worse, he assumes the president has not. Perhaps he did not read the president's autobiography, or he would have realized that Obama is not a lost little mulatto child who is willing to give West something in exchange for that which is not West's to trade. Obama's struggle to find peace with himself is essentially the opposite of "deracination," a term that takes on all the force of an epithet here. Obama is lambasted as a Kenyan anti-colonialist by the likes of Newt Gingrich, and as a wide-eyed surrogate of "upper middle class white and Jewish men" by the likes of West. To have one group of morons question your citizenship while others question your blackness. To have one's very being interrogated by those who, because of their own pathologies, see your difference as a kind of terrible mistake, an anomaly to be soothed with toxic balm of archaic social binaries, this is what it means to be black, and also a mutt.
President Obama has a "fear of free black men," says the celebrity professor from Princeton by way of Harvard, explaining why the president feels "at home" among people who are not black. This remark made me wonder: Which of these men do you think, is actually free, and which afraid of who he truly is?

http://prospect.org/csnc/blogs/adam_serwer_archive?month=05&year=2011&base_name=to_be_a_mutt_and_also_black

[Tarheel_Dem]

65. I'll have to TIVO the replay, unless someone posts a video here.

"President Obama has a "fear of free black men," says the celebrity professor from Princeton by way of Harvard, explaining why the president feels "at home" among people who are not black. This remark made me wonder: Which of these men do you think, is actually free, and which afraid of who he truly is?"

That's the money quote. Thanks for posting that.

[Liberal_Stalwart71]

59. It's strange to me, too, because Cornel is friends with Michael Lerner.

It's weird. Cornel does sound worse than the Birthers and even the Klan, questioning Obama's humanity, his parentage, his allegiance to what is fair, true and just.

He's a fucking buffoon! He and Tavis who can't talk. Can't stand to hear him talk.

[Tarheel_Dem]

64. Ditto! Whenever I hear Tavis' voice these days, I can't reach the tuner

quick enough. Can't bear to hear him now. I put up with his juicy mouth before, because he used to have something useful to say, but when he became an attack dog for (you know who) in the primaries, I walked away, and never looked back.

[Liberal_Stalwart71]

173. Next time you can stomach to hear him, count the number of times he says "right quick"

A friend of mine and I attended this event a few years back, and we sat and counted the number of times "right quick" was uttered from this man's mouth. No lie! We counted over 100 times! And sadly, he is often touted as a member of the black intelligentsia. No thanks! Tavis does not speak for me. In fact, he doesn't 'speak' at all!

[Number23]

66. "Has he always sounded so anti-semitic?"

Tarheel, that is an excellent question. I have loved Dr. West for a long time and I can honestly say that I have never heard him say anything that can be construed as anti-Semitic. But we all know that far too many people love to play the "Jew card" when they start to thinking that the world isn't being fair to them for whatever reason.

[Liberal_Stalwart71]

58. BRILLIANT!! You are speaking for me, here, too! This is exactly how I feel...

Tavis, Cornel...both are fast becoming a fucking joke!!

[Pisces]

137. His self importance go the best of him. Too bad for West, he is the loser in this broohaha.

[uponit7771]

140. Man, you hit the nail on head no doubt. I'm thrown back, it's like it's a movie or something. The...

...pride smacks you in the face.

[young but wise]

4. K & R!

[jaxx]

5. Well done.

K&R

[uponit7771]

7. "....Furthermore, West’s sense of betrayal is clearly more personal than ideological..."

Nah, can't tell...not at all...

[frazzled]

9. Oh, SNAP!

A Princeton colleague, whose intellect exceeds her two male targets by a long shot, gets it right.

I've stayed out of this little contretemps, but now I'm happy to add my recommendation to Professor Harris-Perry's article. I've had my eye on Cornel and Tavis since the earliest days of the primary, when they were yammering on Tavis's NPR radio show about how "Obama's not really a brother, you know," referring to his white mother. Why don't we talk about Tavis's thousand-dollar suits and Hollywood suckupism instead? On Professor West, on whom I know a thing or two (well, really one thing, but I won't say), let's just discuss his privileged ensconcement at Harvard/Princeton and leave it at that.

The remark about middle-class "white" and Jewish men is simply beneath contempt.

[Liberal_Stalwart71]

60. What's odd is that they threw their support behind Hillary Clinton after that

event during the primaries. Then, Hillary turns around and offends the entire black American community. She and her husband. Did we hear anything at all from Tavis and Cornel? Of course not!

[Name removed]

10. Deleted message

Message removed by moderator. Click here to review the message board rules.

[AtomicKitten]

12. Prof West can be entertaining, but Melissa's argument is solid and trustworthy.

k&r

[OKNancy]

13. I said it in that other thread and will repeat.

He is a gasbag. He is just as bad as Dinesh D'Souza.

[Pirate Smile]

22. The comparison of him to Gingrich as "intellectuals" is particularly cutting.

heh

[liberation]

112. "He is just as bad as Dinesh D'Souza."

Of all the silly ad hominems in this thread.

This one takes the cake...

[Sheepshank]

14. Good lord that was satisfying.

the most decent belch after a West Brisket.

[Solomon]

98. LOL Indeed!

[These Eyes]

15. K&R...

She nailed it! West's so-called critiques of the president are nothing more than the jealous rantings of a man with the emotional maturity of a ten year old. Yet, for some around here, West is a f###ing hero.

[BREMPRO]

120. agreed.. don't understand why people put him on a pedestal.. he really is just vindictive, not

brilliant on some mythical moral high ground as some here seem to think.

[Kind of Blue]

16. Absolutely Correct!

KnR, Indeed.

[jenmito]

17. K&R! THANK YOU, Melissa Harris-Perry! n/t

[Whisp]

18. ha! sounds like a huge arsehole.

such ego! such importance!
such a creep.

go fuck yourself, West. and do it East as well.

[Tarheel_Dem]

23. "and do it East as well".

:spray:

[CakeGrrl]

20. Methinks Cornel West is threatened by a charismatic man of action

So he relies on pontificating, blowhard condescension to try and belittle the man who makes him feel inferior.

Just my $.02.

[Solomon]

100. Obama makes him and Smiley irrelevant relics of the past.

He's desperately trying to maintain some meaningfulness in a new world.

I suggest he start with a haircut and a shave and stop being so immature.

[tishaLA]

21. and she's his colleague

I know more than a couple professors of African American studies at Princeton and, happily or sadly, they're more pro-Obama than pro-West.

BTW I should also say that IMO Prof Harris-Perry fulfills the role of the public intellectual much better than her colleague does.

[FrenchieCat]

24. For those who are thoughtful.....they already understood what Melissa Harris-Perry is writing about

There's a saying in the Black Community...."folks can be trifflin'"....
which is exactly how Brother West is behaving....for whatever reason.

In fact, I feel sorry for Brother West.
It's never fun witnessing a good mind going to waste.

[elleng]

26. Thanks, Frenchie.

Heard some disagreement when I 'challenged' West here, and HAPPY to see this from Melissa (and you.)

:hi:

[jaysunb]

31. Well said !

:hi:

[elleng]

25. LOVE HER!

SO right!

[Name removed]

27. Deleted message

Message removed by moderator. Click here to review the message board rules.

[Tarheel_Dem]

28. Outside places like DU, West is a jealous joke. And Perry's article is spot on.

And if you observed from the beginning, I don't see that West "had a change of heart". As Perry correctly points out, Tavis (Hillary supporter) got miffed that Obama didn't bow before him, and took attention away from his SOBU, and he's never forgiven him for it. West, being an ally of Smiley and all the corporations that he's in bed with, took Tavis' side in a petty & childish squabble.

These were the idiots, from the beginning, who questioned Obama's "blackness". So there was no "change of heart", just West being miffed that he & Tavis aren't in the President's inner circle.

[Liberal_Stalwart71]

61. EXACTLY!!!!!!!!!! n/t

[Name removed]

29. Deleted message

Message removed by moderator. Click here to review the message board rules.

[Hutzpa]

33. *bust out laughing*

Professor Melissa, you are just too smart sister, this is a home run indeed. Your
anomaly reads and sounded uncannily like the good ol' Professor.

Thank you for the laugh this afternoon.

[Peacetrain]

34. Between Tavis and Cornel.. who needs enemies..

Just saying

[Number23]

36. Corny's mortifying, self-pitying BS got over 300 recs here

We know this won't come anywhere near that, but I am so proud of every poster who has shown support for Melissa Harris-Perry and are savvy enough to see through the bullshit and self-pitying inanity of Corny's truly awful screed. Good Lord, how the mighty have fallen.

[FrenchieCat]

38. Funny dat....there are more Black Duers responding to this thread (and we are few here)

than in that really "popular" one!

You'd think that folks in that thread would want to "engage"
in a thread where a Black Academic from the same institution
responds to another Black Academic's rants about our first Black President.

[Number23]

42. Folks here have always preferred to talk "at" us

As if we don't understand our communities/lives/situations better than those for whom this is purely an academic exercise or an excuse to break their arms patting themselves on the back.

I share Cornell's irritation that so many of the Wall Street assholes that gave us the global financial crisis are still walking free. If he had stuck with actual issues and not meandered squarely into straight up whining that "the big man didn't return my calls," I might have a bit of sympathy for him. Instead, he's been getting his ass handed to him right and left for his bigoted, petty and ridiculous criticisms of the president and imho he deserves every damn bit of it.

Any black man who has made his living educating, working and living amongst over privileged white folks and who wants to call another black man "fearful" of other black men based on nothing but his own misguided sense of projection deserves the foot up the ass that he's been getting.

[Karenina]

145. Hear! Hear!

This is truly professor West's "Now watch me be an ASSHOLE" moment.

[Name removed]

168. Deleted message

Message removed by moderator. Click here to review the message board rules.

[Number23]

177. Every third post I make on this topic is being deleted

Folks is getting SENNNSITIVE!

[stevenleser]

180. Exactly, and at FDL recently too. Everyone wants to tell African Americans how they should feel

about Obama. Like here http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=439x1141234

People don't see how racist this is.

[Liberal_Stalwart71]

62. I don't believe that it's merely a coincidence, either. Sadly!!! n/t

[Name removed]

70. Deleted message

Message removed by moderator. Click here to review the message board rules.

[woo me with science]

37. Wow, Cornel hit a nerve.

:evilgrin:

[FrenchieCat]

39. Nerve called.....

he wants his 1970 victim mentality back.

[woo me with science]

41. ...

:rofl:

[Number23]

44. DAMN you hit the nail on the head. It is exactly that -- a 1970 victim mentality

Those of us who know anything about anything understand exactly what you're saying.

See post #40 from ProSense. (I don't think that it's a coincidence that 90% of the black posters on this site are on the same side.) She has some great pieces from other black academics who are also sick of Cornell's shit.

Edit: West was obviously pandering to white liberals with his comments. This type of behavior is nothing new -- tear the brother down in order to build up cred with those outside of the community and who don't understand it. The only people who seem the most supportive of West's comments are people who don't have the first damn clue what the man's true issues with the president are or exactly how what he said is so offensive and disgusting. That is truly saying something.

[Liberal_Stalwart71]

63. The irony is that West is doing the exact thing that he claims Obama is doing.

Like the wingnuts do, he is projecting, and he's doing so brilliantly. Except for one thing: we aren't stupid people. We know exactly what Cornel is up to.

[Number23]

67. Yep. Perry cuts him to the nitty when she calls him out on being pissed that

the brother parking his car got to go to the inauguration but he "had to watch it on tv." :eyes: :puke: :nopity: :eyes:
LORD have mercy.

[Solomon]

101. It wasn't Cornel that struck a nerve, it's the people here who

latch on to any criticism of Obama acting like West has more credibility because he's black. That's what strikes the nerve. Most of us in the black community see right through West. It's sad that people here can't.

[woo me with science]

106. "because he's black." Really?

:wow:

[ProSense]

40. More good reads

Adam Serwer: To Be Black, And Also A "Mutt"

<...>

West speaks in the language of common humanity, but his verbal assumptions undermine the charade. “He feels most comfortable with upper middle-class white and Jewish men who consider themselves very smart, very savvy and very effective in getting what they want,” West says, as though interracial intimacy, finding oneself "at home" with a "them" were, by definition, a form of self-hatred. My mother faced such accusations, having married my father in the late 1960s. Time has a way of excusing ignorance, but at least insults hurled in the street do not make any pretense to intellectual respectability. West believes what he is saying is profound. It is petty.

In response to perceived social slights, West severs Obama from any individual claim to blackness while inviting him to accept the terms of an implicit contract by which his lost negritude might be restored. For mixed people, blackness is not accepted as a fact of existence but something negotiable, a question of membership to which those whom are Truly Black may grant you access. This gives the game away of course, the reality of race as an invention, if one we have no choice but to live with.

Growing up mixed you sometimes face a kind of confusion. Those around you press you to make a choice about how much of yourself you're willing to give up, how much you're are willing to pretend in order to claim membership in one club or another. West demands to know why Obama isn't sitting at the black table in the dining hall, while reminding him that he's only welcome there by his graces. What you eventually learn is that peace is not something the "gatekeepers" have to offer and is the last thing they want you to find. Eventually you learn the rules of the game are silly and destructive, and who you are can't be negotiated either way.

To some degree this is just a part of adolescence, but most people have grown out of this kind of racial pageantry by middle age. West has not, but perhaps worse, he assumes the president has not. Perhaps he did not read the president's autobiography, or he would have realized that Obama is not a lost little mulatto child who is willing to give West something in exchange for that which is not West's to trade. Obama's struggle to find peace with himself is essentially the opposite of "deracination," a term that takes on all the force of an epithet here. Obama is lambasted as a Kenyan anti-colonialist by the likes of Newt Gingrich, and as a wide-eyed surrogate of "upper middle class white and Jewish men" by the likes of West. To have one group of morons question your citizenship while others question your blackness. To have one's very being interrogated by those who, because of their own pathologies, see your difference as a kind of terrible mistake, an anomaly to be soothed with toxic balm of archaic social binaries, this is what it means to be black, and also a mutt.

<...>

Ta-Nehisi Coates: Gathering The Tribe

<...>

That last point is key. As surely as Trump was whistling at a certain tribe of grievance-mongering white people when he demanded to see Obama's grades, West is whistling to a tribe of grievance-mongering black people, when he tars Obama as fearful of "free" black men and culturally white. But West's constituency is considerably smaller. Among the presumably mentally-enslaved black masses, Obama is arguably the most popular public figure in the country, outdistanced only by his wife.

This is rather personal for me. I went off to Howard University when I was 18. The greatest experience I had at the Mecca was bearing witness to the broad diversity of the black community. I had never met black people who were in Jack and Jill, or listened to Marilyn Manson, or were openly gay. I had never met Hispanic black people, or black people from Canada. I think if Howard had casted out every biracial black person, or black person who'd grown up as an "only," or surrounded by white culture, we would have cut our student body in half and the school would have gone out business.

I learned there that to be black was to be born into a family, who'd taken the one-drop rule, flipped it, and created their own personal rainbow. And that power of irony, embedded in our very name, holds me in such a way, that to lose that aspect of blackness would mean losing the thing itself. If I can't flip it, I don't want it.

I am not one for shrinking the tribe. I learned that at Howard University. Perhaps at Princeton, as with so much, black studies are more advanced.

[FrenchieCat]

43. Thanks for posting those.......as they are

Fascinating reads....

[Pirate Smile]

46. Thanks!

[Tarheel_Dem]

56. This made me cry as I thought about the hell my nieces & nephews went through....

"For mixed people, blackness is not accepted as a fact of existence but something negotiable, a question of membership to which those whom are Truly Black may grant you access. This gives the game away of course, the reality of race as an invention, if one we have no choice but to live with."

We all know how mean children can be to those who they perceive as "different", but a grown ass, supposedly intelligent man like should know all this. Being biracial can be hell if you're not well equipped to deal with it. For folks like West, you're not black enough. For some whites, you're too black, and you spend a good deal of your life wondering where you fit in. I hope more people of import take on Dr. West, and make him feel the shame he obviously hasn't felt up to now.

[Kind of Blue]

72. Sometimes I think it's what the president is mixed with -

an African father and not an African-American father. I can't help but think that's what his "otherness" with some black folks is about, and wonder if they might not be so over the top harsh, if his family's background was historically similar.

[CitizenLeft]

147. and not just if you're "mixed"

I am what is called "light-skinned" and grew up in the '60's. I was chased home every day from school (until I stupidly whipped out a paring knife to make them back off - which they did), called "whitey," "honkey," and "yellow cracker" until it almost made me cry (I never gave them the satisfaction). Every day from grades 2-4 until I learned to fight back and forced them to deal with ME instead of my skin, I had to apologize for being pale.

For mixed people, blackness is not accepted as a fact of existence but something negotiable, a question of membership to which those whom are Truly Black may grant you access.

That also applies to me, even though both my parents were black, though my asshole father was so light he could "pass." He "passed" that dubious ability on to me - one I have always rejected and despised - and I've been paying for it all my life. Oddly, it's become painful again lately in the strangest way. My cousin married a beautiful brilliant activist woman who has lovely dark skin, deep chocolate. They divorced when I was a teen, but she's been like loving family to me all my life. In the last year, I started spending a lot more time with her (movies, shopping, etc.) and I found myself increasingly being subjected to subtle blackness tests. I was asked why I "don't like black music." So I started playing 60's-70's R&B, and she was shocked (WTF - shocked?) to discover that I knew all the words to almost every song. I worked in a record store in my teens and learned to appreciate almost all music. I'm just not into hip/hop.

As time went on, I was given similar tests, never sure if I "passed" them or not. I found myself defending almost every stance I have, as a way of her discerning if I was "black enough" I guess. Inevitably, we had an argument about politics - she despises Obama and thinks it's beneath her to vote - and that was the end of that. At this moment, I don't know if I'll ever see her again. It's really a fucking shame, because I do love her, as I love her sons, one of which is blood-related, and I just lost my beloved aunt, leaving me basically without family here except for them. So... yeah. I'm applauding Ms. Perry for what she said. My cousin's ex-wife is the female equivalent of Cornel West, in that she, apparently, has never been able to see me clearly, though I've known her nearly all my life. Very disheartening to discover, 40 years later, that I don't measure up.

[Number23]

169. Fantastic post.

Thanks alot for that. Even darker black folks are always feeling that we have to "be blacker" in order to pass muster. I love being black, and I love, LOVE black people but we can be some of the most oppressive people in the whole damn world towards EACH OTHER.

Cornel West's attitude should not be lauded for exactly the reasons that you mentioned. But you speak from wisdom and experience, two qualities that most of the people applauding West do not seem to possess.

[CitizenLeft]

172. thank you, #23

My mother was brown, and frankly... I don't remember her ever speaking to me about my skin tone. She never made qualitative comments about it one way or the other. That's probably because she didn't even know I was being harassed, and why, until she got that call from the school about the knife. Shocked the crap out of her, and even then, I don't think I told her the names they were calling me. I just didn't. Was I ashamed of it, or embarrassed? I couldn't say from this distance, but... even though I resented the treatment I got from the other kids, I later understood its origins, and I don't think I ever discussed it with her until I was much older. In my lifetime, I have met one or two fair-skinned black women who... let's say, relished being light, revelled in the extra attention they received from boys/men because of it, and made sure everyone knew it in a very self-absorbed fashion. It was offensive, and hurtful to others who were not considered "pretty" because they had darker skin, especially in those days. I loathed girls/women like that, because not only did they flaunt the attention they got, but made my life a living hell. I hated that some assumed I felt that way about myself - on the contrary, I've always suffered from a lack of self-esteem, not the other way around. And I spent my life wanting to get a tan, never happy about the "yellowish" tone to my skin. You're right, it's sad that we wound each other in such a way, when there are so many ways we could help each other. :(

[EffieBlack]

45. THANK you, my sister!!!

K&R

[Name removed]

48. Deleted message

Message removed by moderator. Click here to review the message board rules.

[ProSense]

49. Obviously,

anyone who disagrees with criticism of Obama gets the "Obama Messiah meme" hurled at them as if such dissent is not allowed.

Anyone who dissents from the Obama Messiah meme will get his guts torn out by the usual sacrificial priests of the High Holy Middle Way Church of political rectitude and middle-brow neoliberal nattering. The New Republic is the worst. Gut and burn the surviving radicals and apostates like West. He doesn't seem to know who butters his bread, the fool.

What passes for intellectual discourse on political topics in this country!

There is some serious irony there.

[Name removed]

84. Deleted message

Message removed by moderator. Click here to review the message board rules.

[ProSense]

85. Hmmm?

"I don't remember anyone getting such a cheery communal roasting alive as West has gotten from the center-right defenders of Obama"

Hilarious. Obama is popular. So in order for his detractors to reject his appeal and feel self-righteous in doing so, they have to resort to claiming the President's defenders are "center-right."

"This tells me that the irony of this is lost on the gut pluckers who pretend to be modern rationalists, when in fact they're playing the same ritual of identity politics of which they accuse West. They're merely playing out the scapegoating ritual within a different community of shared superstition and victimization."

What that tells me is that you pegged West and are now projecting. Good job on nailing West. As for "victimization," that's another role mastered. Irony: claiming that other people's opinion makes you a victim.

[Name removed]

90. Deleted message

Message removed by moderator. Click here to review the message board rules.

[ProSense]

93. Really?

as "center-right", as would I describe some of my own views the same way. I don't deny or resent Obama's personal popularity - we still have shrines and bumper stickers in our household that pay homage to him. I just haven't been able to bring myself to tear them down. Too much invested personally, I guess. But, neither can I shut up when I see a communal roast of Obama critics, no matter how parochial and sectarian their expressed views might seem - I can't project onto Cornell West or Tavis Smiley because I don't pretend to fully grasp where they're coming from.

You're defending West, but don't fully grasp where he's coming from? Really? As for your entire comment, can you reconcile it with this?

Also, it's doubtful that all Obama supporters have "shrines" paying "homage" to him. Some people aren't into that stuff.

Finally, I am far too privileged to claim victimhood of any kind. Please don't impute that to me - it doesn't show your appreciation for irony. It shows how little you know about those whom you attack, and those whom you defend. It tells me that you don't know how to have a civil discourse with those with whom you differ.

Sounds like you're playing a game, and losing.

[dionysus]

50. someone sounds a smidge upset!

:rofl:

[here_is_to_hope]

126. Make room, I want to dogpile on too!

What passes for DU these days is more schoolyard than anything else.

[dionysus]

51. the "messiah" shit is all played out. i'll give you a retro point for "nattering", but overall it's

pretty stale.

[CakeGrrl]

69. Anyone who uses the term "Obama Messiah Meme"

should not be taken for someone who's actually INTERESTED in intellectual discourse.

[vaberella]

76. Are you shitting me?! Did you read West's quote on "fear of the free Black man"

And you're telling me that we're tearing out his guts for dissenting from the Obama messiah! HARDLY! Who does Cornel West think he is to know who Obama is?! "fear of the free Black man" because he was raised with a white family is stupid. Because Cornel West doesn't know all. And it's a sad day when people are buying into West's semi-racialized views than looking at the man himself.

[leveymg]

86. The reason why people are tearing into "West's semi-racialized views" is to marginalize

the black intellectual Left which, like most of the rest of the Left, is struggling to liberate itself from the spell of Obama worship.

If we look at Obama's policies, we see someone who is a competent corporate lawyer and reliable member of the moneyed global Establishment. Nothing more, nothing less. But, that's an incomplete picture, because when you scratch beneath the surface of the man the picture is more of an enigma. West is translating what he sees there through his own particular lens - that of the endangered species of black radical -- that view is bound to appear to others to be somewhat distorted and incomplete. Like looking through the eyes of a bee or a bear. But, as Cornell would be the first to tell you, there are no true universal views, just as there is no True Messiah. Obama embodies neither universal ideal - he is just a man whom we are struggling to understand because his policies and priorities are not our own.

[vaberella]

88. Are you kidding me?

Do you what he said? He attacked the man's DNA in order to state that Obama is of course the way he is because of his White DNA. How can that be missed. The man even used "deracination". This is not the Intellectual left--if it is...he's gone mad. This is pure militant-racialized ideology to attack the President. He's not Black enough---and his White side is keeping from him to bond with this Black side. Why the hell are you defending this? His point is lost when he went in that direction.

[leveymg]

92. He's using the term DNA as a metaphor for black identity, which is traditionally that of

an oppressed person who identifies most closely with those of the same racial out-group and the lower classes.

Obama's policies and expressed views are those of a Wall Street lawyer - definitely not a member of an oppressed out-group. West resents Obama not because of his personal views on race (or his own identity) but because of his policies. The resentment is doubled because in West's view, Obama is not being true to himself and "his own kind." That may seem parochial, but the sentiment is understandable.

West is speaking the inside lingo of someone whose own identity is that of a minority. At least, that's what I think is behind his comment - but, I really don't know. Nothing that he's saying seems so bizarre as to earn the labeling he's being given in The New Republic and elsewhere.

[NatBurner]

94. lol

those are a lot of fancy words just to say "i don't know wtf i'm talking about"

way to go, chaucer

[leveymg]

117. I don't presume to fully understand West. Perhaps, you can explain his statement better?

I just see an aggitated mob and its target - I can't see fully inside of the head of the guy they're chasing after.

Mob behavior I can describe, and know enough to comment on how they behave. I see a lot of projection of hatred and fears of racial stereotyping onto West. There's a cast out the devil sort of thing going on here, and I don't like it when it happens within the political party and progressive community I'm a part of.

That's different from saying "i don't know wtf i'm talking about", lower caps.

[vaberella]

129. I think Melissa Harris-Perry touched on it very well---it's unhinged nonsense. n/t

[NatBurner]

139. right. u had me at messiah, btw

*swoons*

[Number23]

170. i love you, man

:rofl:

[NatBurner]

174. good to see u back

even though it's probably only temporarily

:hi:

[vaberella]

128. Exactly...n/t

[Tarheel_Dem]

179. Keyboard please....

:spray:



:thumbsup:



:rofl:

[vaberella]

130. FYI---I'm Black....and no.

You're statement is full of shit. Why is it full of shit?! Because there was no need for Cornell West to touch on a man's DNA to suggest why politically he does what he does. This is what is disturbing and there is absolutely no way to defend that. There is going after a persons policies. There is going after a person's political choices.

But to imagine a racial biological reasoning as to why Obama made the choices he did. At the same time tieing that with his social upbringing is ludicrous. And this amazing greater point people like to expound on that is inside of this disturbed rhetoric from West, is lost entirely to the masses because of the highly deranged almost racist assessment that West felt qualified to make in regards to the president. This is offensive no matter who it's done too. It's offensive to Black people, especially those with from multicultural backgrounds---where he accuses in effect that Obama is either not Black enough or in some way his Blackness is polluted by his White mother. And it insults Whites and Jews who are deemed divided from strife and struggle----admittedly there are those who do not face the same issues that Blacks have growing up---but poverty touches all races.

You don't know what's behind the comment. But as a Black person who was raised in Harlem---let's just say I'm not from the rich of the rich and I'm offended. But then again I am also from a multicultural background---by West's definition I'm not only not Black enough to get his statement----the white part of my lineage polluted my way of thinking.

[leveymg]

143. West is saying that Obama, the politician, has betrayed

his race and minorities (by which he means most black Americans, the urban poor and most of those who are hanging on precariously to the lower part of the middle-class).

A further implication is and that there is something inside of Obama which has caused him to make decisions that have made the conditions of life for most black Americans worse, not better, and that Obama had a choice, and made the wrong one - wrong for most black Americans, who in disproportionate numbers are still the poorer half of America.

I'm not sure that I agree with that statement by West, even the way that I have (generously) interpreted it. Hell, I'm not even sure that the President of the United States still has any good choices in terms of basic economic policy. I am well aware of the advanced stage of crisis that we are in. But, in terms of the economics of race and class in America - and we all have to agree that such a concept is valid -- this Administration has been extremely disappointing. I understand West's bile.

It wasn't crazy talk, as some here have mistakenly concluded, it's angry insider barroom talk. Even as I wish he hadn't said what he did, publicly, and framed as a provocatively as he did (but West is a provocateur, that's his style, which works for him better sometimes than others - this time it didn't work), I have to stand up and say to others around me, chill out, and beware the urge to scapegoat that is inside of us all. Don't get played by the Powers That Be, again. I've seen this cycle of scapegoating before, and it only serves power.

[Swede]

150. Stop digging,already.

You're gonna reach China.

[leveymg]

153. Fine.

Too many raw nerves in this one.

[dionysus]

178. you're both black enough and white enough for me Vab! great post!

:woohoo:
:thumbsup::thumbsup:

[ProSense]

89. Oh

"is to marginalize the black intellectual Left which, like most of the rest of the Left, is struggling to liberate itself from the spell of Obama worship"

...bullshit!

More us versus them bullshit with a twist of victimhood.

West is not the "black intellectual Left." He's black, he's on the left and he's an intellectual (and so is Perry), but he does not speak for anyone but himself. I take that back, here is who he speaks for:

The steering committee’s first four members were Cindy Sheehan, Dr. Jill Stein, Richard Winger and Dr. Cornel West. After its first phone conference in early February of 2011, the committee added Paul Barrow, Alan Maki, and David Swanson, and recruitment efforts will continue indefinitely to ensure the committee represents the full breadth and depth of the Progressive community.

Not a single one of them a member of the "black intellectual Left."

What joke!

[dionysus]

176. "the spell of Obama worship" wow is that line so bitter and stale by now....

surely you can do better, spice it up with a "cult" or "rezco"...
:rofl:

[MadBadger]

83. Are you really one to lecture about political discourse?

[flamingdem]

53. An academic who needs to bump up with reality a bit more nt

[jenmito]

55. Does my "dear brother West" explain why Obama married a BLACK woman? n/t

[vaberella]

80. Mainly it's seen as a way for Obama to prove himself as one of the Black community.

Especially if he wanted any sort of leadership role or move up in leadership. Think of Michelle as part of a grand plan towards power.

[Liberal_Stalwart71]

57. She's absolutely amazing!! She made West look like a fucking fool.

He's becoming an embarrassment, and this is coming from a huge Cornel West fan...up until now. I don't know what the hell is wrong with West and Tavis Smiley, but they are fast becoming a joke! Al Sharpton took it too Cornel, smacked him down good. And now Dr. Perry follows through with another kick-ass, fact-laced diatribe. Well done.

I especially love the comment that the black community is NOT a monolith. Any time I hear ANYONE who happens to be black tell us what to think and how to act, I get disgusted. Dr. West doesn't speak for me and he doesn't speak for the millions of African Americans in this country.

What's happening here is a case of sour grapes. It's like the guy who you wanted to ask you out asked your friend out instead. Very, very sad. Dr. West is too smart for this pettiness!!!

[disndat]

99. Exactly.

So on target, like Harris-Perry who is so brilliant! Every time Cornell West opens his mouth he is only enforces the image that be nothing but a big donkey's behind.

[Cali_Democrat]

68. I never thought I would have to unrec an article from the brilliant Melissa Harris-Perry

But this vile attack on fellow liberal colleague is nothing more than an attempt to stifle criticism of Obama's policies.

It makes me sad to read this.

Unrec :(

[BklnDem75]

71. You see this as a vile attack...

but West's idiotic rant wasn't a vile attack? Am I reading this right?

[Cali_Democrat]

75. I thought West's criticism of Obama was a bit over the top

But he raised some valid points regarding Obama's policies.

However, Melissa's piece was about West and I thought she made it personal and that was unnecessary IMO.

[vaberella]

77. "fear of the free Black man" was just a "bit over the top" fo r you.

You were not insulted in anyway when West defines Obama's problem to be him being raised by White people?! Think there's a divide and this divide is to dislike anything that criticizes people who criticize Obama, even when it's obvious this person is in the wrong.

I'm not sure if you're White or Black...but it was clear that Cornel West blamed his White background and in effect his "deracination" to why Obama may not have done as he "expected". Then he goes on to talk bout Stiglitz and Krugman who were not even in for running since I know for Krugman he didn't want ANYTHING to do with the administration or having political office. But you'd sooner side with West. As for Harris' statements, well she has a right to after West, when West went after Obama mainly because of the man he is and not about the policies (and even his picks is based on who he is as a man) and yet you felt it was right to unrec a thread over that. I thought you were about policy. Whatever..

[BklnDem75]

82. Are you serious?

So because West said some things that you agree with, you'll willing to discount the pure personal hatred he unleashed? Questioning a black man's blackness isn't personal to you? Where I'm from, a statement like that would get a person dropped on their ass no matter who he is, and West knows that.

So you're ok that West, in his rant, attempted to separate Obama from the rest of the black race here in America, but you're not ok with Melissa taking West to task for it? Really?

[vaberella]

87. That's how some roll.

I always suspected that Obama's dislike on DU is more personal than policy. And defense of West's comments---overall is ridiculous in light of the pure disgusting nature of his comments. "deracination" <---that word irks me like nothing else.

[Cali_Democrat]

108. I am serious

Nothing good comes from an article like this.

[vaberella]

131. Uh huh...and nothing good came from Cornell West's statement, but you defended that one. n/t

[Cali_Democrat]

138. I thought some of West's criticism of Obama was over the top

But he also raised some valid points that should be discussed. I didn't agree with everything West said.

[vaberella]

156. What ever good point should have been lost when he suggested Obama's DNA affected his policies.

Because I don't know how his White Mother could have influenced his policy decisions. The entire argument made by West was associating Obama's supposed disassociation with the poor and lack of managing populism or political capital and policy decisions/appointments with his White Mother, White middle class upbringing (which is ultimately his DNA)----as though to say his White side causes him to be disconnected with poor people.

If you paid attention to his words you would see that. And that is what offends so many people and I don't see how ANYONE can defend this or even say...well I didn't agree with anything but this or that point---because I said this or that point is associated with some sort of biological determination which West attests too. That is unacceptable and basically racist---without being racist. People raged about Reverend Wright---well this isn't too far from that and I find West's claims even worse. Because at least Wright never touched the biological area to suggest all White people are evil in their genes. But West basically suggest something of that nature.

[Cali_Democrat]

158. Perhaps I should have been more specific

I did not agree with West's analysis that Obama's white side and upbringing influences his policies. I found that part of his analysis to be over the top.

West is a brilliant man and saying something stupid does not negate other valid points he may have raised. At least not for me. I still very much appreciate his analysis on political issues even though it can be over the top at times.

[vaberella]

161. I think I should be more clear.

Any other point he may have made within that context or argument...was negated because he basically slams Obama and then apologies for Obama within the same breath. And he does it by using a biological mistake that happened to Obama along the way. If he never related the two---then maybe I would say criticism if valid. But he did, which makes his entire points irrelevant.


And when he mentioned some of the things he claimed Obama failed at---he never expounds as to what---and sadly ignores what was done that had greatly helped many communities. Such as DADT, the move on DOMA. The bill that pushed for more enforcement and aid towards Native American women on domestic abuse and other bills that aided Native Americans such as investment in schools, or the investment by the administration for AIDS research and medical facilities, and not to mention the distribution of money to medical facilities in Puerto Rico and Guam, or Lily Ledbetter and Matthew Shepherd and countless more.

I can see people being angry with the President...but some of the anger should be focused on Congress as well. Because obviously has pushed and signed into law a lot of great things---which were pointed out by Ms. Harris-Perry. Added to this disregard is the explanation by West which gives this almost sad problem is because Obama is not a "real" Black man. As though he was in some way polluted so this supposed "sell-out" is to be expected.

I just don't see this as a something to be "much appreciated" <---there's just nothing there. The substance is killed by all of these points.

[Cali_Democrat]

163. " Any other point he may have made within that context or argument...was negated"

I disagree. A valid point can be a valid point regardless of whether or not objectionable things are said prior to or after said point.

[BklnDem75]

151. That's a bit selective

Any point West was trying to make got lost with his mind pollution. Your outrage is inconsistent and that speaks volumes.

[Cali_Democrat]

159. I view West as a brilliant man

His analysis can be over the top sometimes, but that does not mean everything he has to say is invalid. At least not for me. Perhaps you have a different take and I can respect that. But I will still pay close attention to West's analysis. You don't have to.

[BklnDem75]

160. So he's above being taken to task? Why?

[Cali_Democrat]

162. Nobody is above being taken to task

You can take him to task all you want. Have at it.

Melissa "took him to task", but I disagree with some of the vitriol in her piece.

[BklnDem75]

164. But, apparently, not his

His vitriol is dandy. Calling a black man an 'oreo' is sufficient political discourse.

:eyes:

[Cali_Democrat]

165. Parts of Cornel's analysis definitely had some vitriol

Maybe even some personal animosity toward Obama, but I wouldn't know for sure because I'm not Cornel West.

His vitriol is not dandy.

But he also raised some valid points IMO.

[quiller4]

74. I don't understand how you could see this as a vile attack. n/t

[vaberella]

79. That's how some people roll. n/t

[Solomon]

103. Especially that one. Obama could walk on water...

you know the rest.

[Myrina]

116. Yes, thank you. Same here.

n/t

[Mojorabbit]

73. I adore Melissa Harris-Perry

and this is a wonderful piece she has written.

[vaberella]

78. Harris-Perry hit this out of the park. He talks about "fear of free Black man"

But seems to be the man sitting as a "claimed" rep of the Black folk is out of his mind. His utter conceit and quasi-racism is ridiculous.

[VeryConfused]

81. West does nothing but shovel shit that's covered with a flowery verbal coating

to cover the smell.

[blackspade]

95. It is sad to see smart generally liberal intellectuals

beating each other up.
I like both West and Harris-Perry in general, but both are pretty much turning me off.
West has let his personal issues with the adiministration over-shadow his formerly insightful commentary, and Harris-Perry has continued to compromise herself with her fawning praise of Obama. They are two sides of the same coin.

[namahage]

141. "Fawning praise."

This sound like someone who only does "fawning praise?"

I have many criticisms of the Obama administration. I wrote angrily about his choice of Rick Warren to deliver a prayer at the inauguration. I have spoken on television about my disagreement with drone attacks in Pakistan and been critical of the administration’s initial choice to prosecute DADT cases. I worked for more progressive health care reform legislation and supported organizations that resisted the reproductive rights “compromises” in the bill. I’ve been scathing in public remarks and writings about the President’s education policy. My husband leads a non-profit that is suing HUD for its implementation of a discriminatory formula in the post-Katrina Road Home program. The president has never called me. I got my ticket to the inauguration from Canada! (Because Canadian Broadcast Television who gave me a chance to narrate the day’s events.) But I can tell the difference between a substantive criticism and a personal attack. It is clear to me that West’s ego, not the health of American democracy, is the wounded creature in this story.

[BklnDem75]

152. Please point out her 'fawning praise'

Did you even read the article?

[latinaliberal]

96. Melissa Harris -Perry

I really enjoy listening to her, West Tavis and even to some extent Michael Dyson appear to have some issues with Obama.

[fascisthunter]

97. Unrec

Until dems can come to grips with critics like West this party is doomed to forget what it used to stand for. I see nothing good coming from this.

[Jim_Shorts]

104. DITTO

[ProSense]

105. Hmmm?

"Until dems can come to grips with critics like West this party is doomed to forget what it used to stand for."

West supported Nader in 2000 and 2004. He's not a Democrat. Also, "black mascot" and "black puppet" aren't terms of endearment.

West's current comments are embarrassing and offensive.

[Cali_Democrat]

107. "Until dems can come to grips with critics like West this party is doomed"

Yep. You nailed it. They are dooming the party and Obama's reelection chances and they don't even realize it.

Nothing good comes from this. In fact, it will likely end in a horror show and fingers will be pointed every which way when the people within the party attempt to pick up the pieces.

[ProSense]

109. "They are dooming the party and Obama's reelection chances and they don't even realize it."

Right, because West is really doing this to benefit Obama's re-election and the Democratic Party.

What a joke!

[BklnDem75]

154. So your stance on the matter is that it was a simple critique?

Perhaps people should come to grips that personal attacks aren't critiques at all. Do you think West's message remained intact with the inclusion of his asshole remarks?

[fascisthunter]

166. no, but at this point I could care less if any of it was personal

you want to know what's personal? Look at the shape the country is in... all you are doing is choosing a distractiion from his critique itself. Go for it... whatever gets you by... not me.

[BklnDem75]

171. He should've stuck with the critique

Any distraction that was added was West's own fault. He made it about something else and that's what's being responded to. You say you could care less, but you care just enough to add in your 2 cents knowing full well what this OP was in response to.

[Karenina]

175. West's own fault. Indeed.

It would seem that the understanding of register and reference points are as lost on as many participants of this thread as the discussion of the moniker, "tar baby." Professor West blowing on that 1970's "Oreo" dog whistle is quite an unfortunate fallback on a provincial mindset. I wanted to slap him into next week. Put it back into your pants, Cornel.

Had he left all that bullshit out his comments, they would be seen as an accurate, challenging, although scathing critique. His bad. And he DESERVES the the scorn being heaped on his hairy head. The black community is NOT a monolith and ASSuming the right to declare who's black enough is old and tired. Shame on him.

[FarLeftFist]

102. Cornel West is certainly entitled to his own opinion but....

He seems obsessed with Obama, and not in a good way. West see's everything as black and white and Obama is a whole lotta gray.

[Name removed]

110. Deleted message

Message removed by moderator. Click here to review the message board rules.

[ProSense]

113. Yes, because

black and poor Americans were doing so well before Obama. In fact, before Bush, like was a cakewalk in the black community. Blacks in prison was a rarity.

"Once we stop off shoring, get our jobs back, end all 3 wars, stop giving the Koch's tax breaks"

Those are certainly goals, but addressing those issues alone are not going to solve the inequity in poor/black communities.

[Name removed]

119. Deleted message

Message removed by moderator. Click here to review the message board rules.

[ProSense]

123. Wait

"Centrists seem opposed to all of those goals, at least when it comes to final action."

Who are "centrists"?

Do you have someone specific in mind who oppose these goals?

For example, three Democrats voted with Republicans yesterday to protect Big Oil.

[Dr Fate]

125. Yes- when it comes to final action, the Kochs get the tax breaks and the wars keep getting funded...

...and the off-shoring continues.

This was true when we had both houses too, but we had some good excuses and stuff. "We dont have the votes" and all that.

Sorry- I dont have any of that blue text that you think people actually click and read.

[ProSense]

127. OK, but

who are "centrists"?

You're accusing "centrists" of not supporting these goals (what that has to do with West isn't apparent), but can't say who they are.

[Dr Fate]

132. You want a list of DEMS who voted to give the Koch Brothers tax breaks over the years?

You want a list of DEMS who have voted with the far right in giving tax breaks and subsidies to off shorers , war profiteers, polluters and oil giants over the years?

You want a list of DEMS who have voted with the far right on starting and continuing to fund wars based on lies?

You think these are LIBERAL positions to take? No, they are centrist positions by defintion.

Just look at all the times where Blue Dogs, DLCErs, 3rd way types sided with the far right. Cant you just google it yourself, then make some pretty blue text that no one will read?

[ProSense]

136. No,

just "centrists" who oppose it now.

Your original comment: "Then centrists will prove West and all the other crazy Liberals 100% wrong."

You were referring to members of Congress?

[Dr Fate]

142. Oh- you want me to tell you what centrists are *saying* they agree with this time.

I'll wait and see what they end up fighting for and getting for us.

Am I wrong to assume history will repeat itself? So all the centrists who supported the far right have now "gone far left" on us? Hope so.

I never judge a politician by what he says-I judge them by what they end up doing.

[ProSense]

118. In fact,

President Obama has put policies in place to address hunger and homelessness.

"first major federal antipoverty effort in decades"

Federal Strategic Plan to End Homelessness

HUD MAKES AVAILABLE $61 MILLION TO SIX APPLICANTS TO PROVIDE QUALITY AFFORDABLE HOUSING, REVITALIZE NEIGHBORHOODS

Govt announces plan to reduce health disparities

Second Chance Act

Theses are the kinds of programs West should be talking up to increase awareness and funding, and to hold the administration accountable.

Instead he claims to be speaking for poor blacks, calling the President a "puppet," while admitting he has no contact whatsoever with the Congressional Black Caucus.

Some advocate.

[Dr Fate]

121. AWESOME.We ARE meeting all those goals in post #110 then. Liberals are fools to say otherwise. n/t

n/t

[ProSense]

124. It's pretty obvious

there is no point to this comment.

[otohara]

111. Dear Brother West

stop calling the President of the United States, your brother.

[Name removed]

114. Deleted message

Sub-thread removed by moderator. Click here to review the message board rules.

[LiberalAndProud]

115. I've read racist tripe before. West's rant qualifies.

I agree wholeheartedly with Melissa's assessment, and then some.

[vaberella]

135. Yup, yup. n/t

[rjwin]

122. Melissa Harris-Perry is simply auditioning for the role

of attack dog for the Obama Administration. like black clergy of alabama lining up in opposition to Martin Luther King's fight for human rights, her only concern is the collection plate! Fortunately, in my community, the black community, it isn't her voice that we hear.

[vaberella]

133. Right...that's why so many people on this thread and board support the argument.

That's hardly the case. The man's statement were offensive and I'm a bit unnerved so many people are defending this nonsense. Explaining away that Obama's choices are based on some DNA contamination from his mother is ludicrous and no one should be defending that.

[AtomicKitten]

134. "her only concern the collection plate" -- What horseshit!

Shame on you for besmirching her good name. The fact that Prof West hurled pejoratives at the president doesn't give you license to attack Melissa Harris-Perry in the same way. It is sad beyond belief that this rift has arisen. Your throwing gasoline on it isn't helping.

[BklnDem75]

157. LOL! Is that all you have?

I guess if you can't dispute her FACTS, real FACTS, it's easier to attack her. West has trained you well.

[polichick]

144. delete

[Bette Noir]

146. "Deracination," "white man with black skin,"

West is calling Mr. President an Oreo. Racism is an absolute disqualifier, in my mind, from intellectualism, so I won't be taking Dr. West seriously any time soon.

"Most comfortable with upper middle-class white and Jewish men..." Says who? Now he can read minds?

[vaberella]

155. Don't forget..."fear of the free Black man" Because Obama is not a Black Man or Free. n/t

[abelenkpe]

149. Ugh.

I like Melissa Harris Perry and think she made some good points about what Cornel West said. He's always been over the top. He's a character. Still love him and love and respect her. However I'm concerned that what he said: that he is disappointed with the economic team chosen by the administration is being lost as discussion instead focuses on the he said she said drama of the story.