April 20, 2015
"President Obama betrayed him. He’s stopped publishing new work. He’s alienated his closest friends and allies."
"What happened to America’s most exciting black scholar?," asks Michael Eric Dyson in a big New Republic about Cornel West.
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In 2011, West and I were both speakers at a black newspaper conference in Chicago. During a private conversation...
The new TNR, ladies and gentlemen. Selling out a friend to make a more salacious story.
Hussein Obama betrayed all of America when he usurped the Presidency, hid all of his records, and oversaw the Cloward Piven destruction of the Republic.
West is small potatoes.
Cognitive dissonance is why we as a nation stand for it.
Congress committed treason.
Betrayal can be a virtue. It really shakes things up.
Cornel West never came out of the tribe.
To leave the tribe and become his own man, scares him deeply to this day.
Thus, in the end, he sits in the women's area and holds their yarn as they make blankets for the coming winter.
Obama is the definition of failure, but at least he went out into the jungle.
Are we sure that cornel west is actually black? Because he is critical of Obama and we all know that if you are there is some inherent racism going on (or rather. Straight up racism). So either he's a self hating uncle tom or he's white!
"most exciting"
For hot air aficionados.
"I don’t respect the brother at all."
Hell hath no fury like a black leftist scorned.
But West's comments on Obama are the funniest things he's ever said -- first things that made me laugh out loud, anyway.
Cornel West occupies the slimmest, leftmost needlepoint end of the bell curve of political philosophy. His opinions are literally irrelevant.
Words I learned today! "sententious "
Since when did merely playing house with language lead to exciting scholarship, black or otherwise?
OTOH, the market for that sort of thing in hotel and motel seminars at $150 a head will never become saturated. In fact, I'd like to take the opportunity to announce my own course in the Paragenics Theory of Class Struggle right here.
Jesus, having to match pictures of sushi now like TBI patients in order to prove our Captcha worthiness? Is this civilization really worth preserving?
Cornel being ostracized for speaking our is part and parcel of leftism. Speak out against leader or idea they promote and they will circle the wagons.!dont expect to many phone calls.
Boo freaking hoo
Cornel West could have done fairly well by himself had he actually done, you know, real scholarly work in philosophy. He was at Harvard already, but then got his panties all in a wad because Larry Summers had the audacity to ask him "Uhhm, are you ever going to do any scholarly work, you know, like we pay you to do?". So, he decamped to Yale(?), where they were thrilled to take in the disaffected black wunderkind, only to discover that Larry had had a point, and that Cornel was a layabout.
Cornel West discovered he really wasn't very good at philosophy, but by then he was too deep into fooling "The Man" to come clean. So, he became the re-incarnation of Stokely Carmichael with a PhD. Now, he's finding out he's not very good at being Stokely either, but he's gotta keep up the act to keep that paycheck coming in.
It's all too bad, because there's probably some philosophy grad out there with real smarts that could make use of the academic positions that those Ivies reserved for the "Herman J. Wattleburg Endowed Chair for Phenomenological Studies of Angry Young Black Dudes".
I bought a copy of Cornel West's rap album.
It was hilarious.
Can't understand why Larry Summers felt that West wasn't doing enough scholarly work.
West will be back once we have a White man in the oval office again.
Prophets in the Judeo-Christian tradition draw on divine inspiration to speak God’s words on earth. They are called by God to advocate for the poor and vulnerable while decrying unrighteousness and battling injustice. Among black Americans, prophecy is often rooted in religious stories of overcoming oppression while influencing the moral vision of social activists. Black prophets are highly esteemed because they symbolize black resistance to white supremacy...
Very telling of "black Americans" by Dyson. Believing to be divinely inspired, but corrupted prophets all.
An ideology that respects Cornel West more than it respects Ben Carson isn't worth a bent nickel.
(1) reduce black unemployment, support wages, decrease the growing economic disparity and welfare dependency of our black inner cities, give men with criminal records a second chance to be productive, OR (ii) encourage uncontrolled immigration by unskilled laborers willing to work for peanuts. Please choose one. If you choose (ii) -- as Obama and West do -- then please don't lecture us about the economic fate of black America.
Cornel didn't changed fundamentally. What changed was that he spoke out against the president. And Dyson will have none of that. And so, suddenly Cornel is a shoddy has been.
No, whatever he was he was prior to him speaking out about Obama. Eric just doenst' want to be associated with such riff raff afterwards.
I was taught that if a subject pronoun begins a clause, that pronoun refers to the prior subject. So "he" in this excerpt should refer to Obama.
Am I the only reader left who knows this rule? Was it not actually a rule? Because I find it increasingly difficult to read modern news reports or blog posts, having to reread passages repeatedly. I don't seem to be senile. Is it that no one who writes for a living knows how to use pronouns any more?
Most exciting black scholar in America? My Aunt Fanny!
You can describe Cornel West in a lot of ways, but somehow "scholar" never comes to mind. He's one more in a sorry line of race hustlers. Huey P. Newton with a flossier college degree comes to mind.
Cornel West is Marco Rubio's second favorite rap artist.
that photograph of West and Obama speaks volumes. West, excited, big afro, waving his arms around. Obama, calm, short hair, a bit uptight.
I don't know if the USA will ever be ready for a President with an afro. Even waving your arms around can get people worried.
How did he alienate his friends? Unlike his friends he no longer drank Obama's kool aid. For that he must walk the walk of shame.
Its' kind of funny how he would.
All the talk avout his messiah complex, Is Dyson saying that he didn't have these traits prior to speaking out against Obama.
I will never agree with Cornel on practically anything. But this sounds like charater assassinateion on Dysons part.
Well, Obama did ONE good thing.
Anything that shuts up Cornel West is a good thing. What a waste of perfectly usable carbon.
Also, I have never done the captcha or verified I'm not a robot and my posts go up just fine. On multiple devices and multiple browsers.
"What happened to America’s most exciting black scholar?,"
Thomas Sowell is apparently doing quite well, thanks for mentioning him.
All else aside, West is indisputably correct in his criticisms of Obama, who showed himself to be a fraud even before the first election. Anyone who was paying attention couldn't have missed it.
Gahrie wrote:
West will be back once we have a White man in the oval office again.
And at that point Dyson and West sould have nothing to do with each other. Whoever has the bigger market share will be the one who accrues the biggest benefit.
IF they were actually friends, its sad.
Though I can't get too worked up over intercine warfare of dueling racial merchants. A pox on both their houses.
Inso far as Cornel as the integrity to not have his pressed eternally on Obama's butthole, like Dyson, I suppose I have to give the edge to West, fi there wre a bear mauling both of them and I could only save one.
Obama later told me in the White House that West left several voice messages, including prayers, from a blocked number with no instructions of where to return the call
Oh, poor, poor Obama! Can't find Cornel West. Poor, poor Obama! Where could he be?
I find that excuse particularly lame. Is Barack Obama our President or is he the Worst Grad Student Ever?
The dog ate your phone number, Cornel.
"Cornel West is Marco Rubio's second favorite rap artist."
I know. First there was the problem with Taylor Swift, and now you tell me Obama's betrayed him. What gives?
I remember Cornel West being on Firing Line all the frickin' time. Never liked the guy, or his arguments. But Buckley kept inviting him anyway. And he kept showing up.
I don't think you get to call yourself a prophet unless you tell us something will happen in the future and it does.
Prophets in the Judeo-Christian tradition draw on divine inspiration to speak God’s words on earth. They are called by God to advocate for the poor and vulnerable while decrying unrighteousness and battling injustice.
It's been a few years since Sunday School, but I don't remember much about the prophets advocating for the poor and vulnerable, or battling injustice.
Am I mis-remembering, or is someone making shit up?
I don't spend much time worrying about what the main cast members from the Matrix movies think about anything, let alone what an extra thinks about anything.
Allison said...Am I the only reader left who knows this rule?
The problem is, that English is a mongrel language. Many times you can't tell whether it is in formal or informal use. Most mongrels don't even care.
It is a result of the Angles tribes, or Anglais in French. If you want to communicate with higher forms of humans, you should write in any of the Romance languages to be fully understood.
Could it be that Professor Thomas Sowell is better? NO---That is a racist comment.
Also, OT, but I wonder if the Professor read NRO's column about the John Doe raids in WI. I thought I knew what went on, but damn, those jack booted thugs were worse than I imagined.
Hebrew Prophets like Amos did
"Listen to this, you fat cows of Bashan who are on the mountain of Samaria. You make it hard for the poor. You crush those in need. You say to your husbands, “Bring us something to drink!” As the Lord God is holy, He has promised, “The days are coming when they will take you away with meat hooks. And the last of you will be taken with fish hooks. You will go out through breaks in the walls. Each of you will go straight out. And you will be sent to Harmon,” says the Lord."
Jeremiah and Micha too, plus many others. Lots of verbal invective against oppression of the poor by selling them into slavery, or violating their property rights.
How that maps onto capitalist critiques is never too clear by moderns who try to be 'prophetic'. The certainly never call all the idolatry and adultery of the people into question.
And they didn't "battle" injustice. Or if they did, they lost (Jeremiah in a cistern)
I wonder if his mother still calls him Corny?
Prophets in the Judeo-Christian tradition draw on divine inspiration to speak God’s words on earth. They are called by God to advocate for the poor and vulnerable while decrying unrighteousness and battling injustice. Among black Americans, prophecy is often rooted in religious stories of overcoming oppression while influencing the moral vision of social activists. Black prophets are highly esteemed because they symbolize black resistance to white supremacy...
Well, that's great. That's just swell.
But, what the fuck does that have to do with working in an Ivy League philosophy department? How about some truth in advertising here, people?
Thanks pduggie!
I learn something new every day. Today I learned that a twinkie inserted into the rectum will last for 65 days. That stuff about the prophets will have to wait until tomorrow.
West wrote a letter of recommendation on my behalf when I applied to graduate school in 1984 and helped me to land at his alma mater Princeton
I'm kind of astounded by this article. Dyson says that he was inspired by West. He spent his "last $5" to talk to the man. West helped him get into Princeton.
And now, in a very public way, Dyson has decided to shit on him. Wow. That's cold, brother. That is ice people cold.
Hmmm....wikipedia doesn't say much about his personal life. No wife. No kids.
Is all his anger just a cover for his homosexuality??
Summers had reprimanded West for his varied side projects, everything from advising Reverend Al Sharpton’s failed presidential bid to his vanity musical ventures. I couldn’t endorse these criticisms, but I knew Summers was right...
You couldn't endorse those criticisms then, but now you can? What'd different now? What motivates this attack?
"Black prophets are highly esteemed because they symbolize black resistance to white supremacy…"
Jewish prophets, on the other hand, are highly esteemed because they held their own people accountable.
Saint Croix wrote:
And now, in a very public way, Dyson has decided to shit on him. Wow. That's cold, brother. That is ice people cold.
And not only does he do that but he says his latest work sucks too. Total hatchet job and airing of dirty laundry.
"The outspoken civil rights activist and academic Cornel West said Harvard University risked being on the wrong side of a “planetary Selma”, culminating a week-long campaign by students and prominent alumni campaigning for the most prominent university in the US to divest from fossil fuels."
Common ground there...
I do not agree with West's Christian socialism, but I often find myself in agreement with his critiques of Obama's foreign policy. And I will give West credit for being consistent and applying the same standard of critique to the Bush foreign policy as to the Obama foreign policy. This would only be rational since there's about a dime's worth of difference between the two. I have a lot more respect for him than a large part of the antiwar crowd that folded like a tent once a Democrat was in the White House. I wonder, what does Michael Eric Dyson think about President Obama assassinating a 16-year-old American citizen at a BBQ in Yemen?
Here is Dyson in The Root:
"Something irrational is going on. It was the nastiness of the tone. The unprincipled assault."
Does Dyson think he's doing journalism? This is more like Academic Soap Opera.
West is a dull tool. On a level playing field, without the gross advantages of affirmative action, he would be unable to get a janitorial job - he is that stupid.
The world has glorified an ass. And he loves it, and thinks is is entirely justified. What a too bit jerk!!
Cornel West is dropped from the posse.
Black prophets are highly esteemed because they symbolize black resistance to white supremacy.
African-Americans not so long ago used to identify with the Israelite Exodus and the search for the Promised Land. Now the race hustlers among them are the worst Jew-baiters and Pali-pimps in existence and the rebellious embrace the Ummah that still practices black chattel slavery. WTF is up with that?
"West lambasted Obama’s decision to announce his bid for the presidency in Illinois ...'Coming out there is not fundamentally about us.' "
You'd figure West understood the political calculus, that any Democratic presidential candidate can expect to get most of the black vote and that a black Democratic presidential candidate is all bug guaranteed most of the black vote and a high turnout of black voters, and therefore candidate Obama didn't realy need to do anything beyond announcing his candidacy to be assured of strong support among African-American voters.
You'd figure West understood this, yet he wanted candidate Obama to put loyalty to black people (or at least to black political institutions) ahead of loyalty to himself and his political candidacy?
Why would candidate Obama have done that? Why would any political candidate do that?
You'd figure that any politician would understand that electoral politics is all about winning because, whatever your agenda, you won't get to enact it if you don't win. Yet West couldn't understand that?
The left confused him with Colonel West
Total hatchet job and airing of dirty laundry.
Is it motivated by race? That's the implication I get from both of these articles, and why they are so mean. Dyson is kicking West out of the tribe. This is an intra-racial attack.
What's strange is that Dyson seems to perceive West's attacks on Obama as "irrational," which I think is a code word for racial. Dyson does not understand how a black scholar can attack a black President, over and over. So now he's saying, "West is not one of us."
I'm not aware of everything that West has said about Obama. My impression is that West's attack on Obama is ideological, not racial. "I would rather have a white president fundamentally dedicated to eradicating poverty and enhancing the plight of working people than a black president tied to Wall Street and drones."
This is where Congreve’s insight on love decomposed to rage comes crashing in.
But West's "rage" is motivated by what he perceives as an ideological dispute. What motivates Dyson's rage at West? That's the more interesting question.
He's not upset at West's ideology. West is attacking Obama from the left. What upsets him is an attack on a black President. It will not be allowed, from anybody.
The new New Republic, same as the old New Republic, at least when it comes to Cornel West:
"Agit-pop! ... This is not Stalinism. This is silliness"
"a BBQ in Yemen?"
Well, he was eating pulled pork, so ...
@EMD:
"Well, he was eating pulled pork, so ..."
Haha.
You know, very few people ever look good atop a high horse, and I try to avoid it as much as I can. That said, I find the breeziness with which people dismiss the deaths of hundreds of innocent children in Obama's drone assassination program pretty stomach turning.
"Long before their ideological schism, however, West believed himself personally betrayed by Obama because of his (supposed) disinterest after the election. It is a sad truth that most politicians are serial rhetorical lovers and promiscuous ideological mates, leaving behind scores of briefly valued surrogates and supporters. West should have understood that Obama had had similar trysts with many others. But West felt spurned and was embittered."
This reminds me a lot of Frank Sinatra, who built a wing for JFK in his house after helping JFK win presidency and he wanted JFK to come over. JFK never did.
Next go around Sinatra voted for Nixon. It was enough to knock him to a different part.
But with West, come on. The guy is a dedicated socialist, look at who he's citing as running his intellectual prism through. He put all faith in Obama as a leftist, and he turned out to be a fraud. Why WOULDN"T he treate Obama with scorn then? Its like finding out the Maharishi actually was screwing Mia Farrow's sister, prompting Lennon to write Sexy Sadie.
"It’s one thing for Ray Charles to turn to Ritz; another thing entirely for a top-shelf scholar to concede that he can’t write for himself, or is too busy to do so. It is akin to Du Bois hiring Truman Capote to fashion his autobiography."
Or a renowned civil rights leader to get Alex Haley to write his autobiography? Or to get a budding presidential candidate to get Bill Ayers to ghost write his book of fabrications?
And Truman Capote was a damn good writer. If Duboise Hired Truman Capote he'd probably get a really well written book.
"I shared my three-part formula for discussing Obama before black audiences: Start with love for the man and pride in his epic achievement; focus on the unprecedented acrimony he faces as the nation’s first black executive; and target his missteps and failures."
This formula also works when you're are discussing Castro in Cuba, Kim Jong-Un in N. Korea, or Khamenei in Iran. The only difference is you *might* have to substitute "Republicans" for "America."
"West, excited, big afro, waving his arms around. Obama, calm, short hair, a bit uptight. "
Those were "jazz hands" so he didn't commit a microagression.
"Am I mis-remembering"
Either mis-remembering or didn't read those parts. The prophets are thick reading for Sunday school, and advocating for justice parts often get left out of the "Israel is judged for worshiping other gods" parts.
See, for instance, Isaiah 1 (esp verses 16-17 and Malachi 3. Lots of other examples. Not always in quantity but definitely in importance of both God's expectations and what the Messiah will be part of doing. Can see this echoed in the NT like in James 1:27, as well as other parts.
One of the rare moments of pride in recent Harvard history: shuffling West off to Princeton.
Coupe: "It is a result of the Angles tribes, or Anglais in French. If you want to communicate with higher forms of humans, you should write in any of the Romance languages to be fully understood."
So true.
For instance, just as the Inuits have many words to describe snow, so do the French have many words that suffice for "surrender".
And they've made ample use of them over the years.
As would be expected a "higher form of human".
"It is akin to Du Bois hiring Truman Capote to fashion his autobiography."
Early Du Bois is not bad, though a little purplish.
His actual autobiographies could have used Capote's services. For starters, he would have put a stop to the subtitle, "An Essay Toward an Autobiography of a Race Concept."
The David Levering Lewis 2-volume biography is actually very good and mostly pretty honest, though he goes easy on WEB's communist effusions. His encomia on Stalin and Mao are something to behold -- just the sort of thing you need to get a major Harvard institute named after you.
CW learned the hard way what he should have known up front: with Obama, its better to be an enemy than a friend. Ask Jeremiah Wright or any other former friends he's thrown under the bus.
"America's most exciting black scholar"
"Exciting" is for pop stars and other ephemera, not for scholars. But of course Cornell West was never much of an actual scholar.
"It's been a few years since Sunday School, but I don't remember much about the prophets advocating for the poor and vulnerable, or battling injustice.
Am I mis-remembering, or is someone making shit up?"
Maybe your Sunday School skipped the books of Exodus, Deuteronomy, Joshua, Judges, 1 Samuel, 2 Samuel, 1 Kings, 2 Kings, 1 Chronicles, 2Chronicles Ezra, Nehemiah, Psalms, Proverbs, Song of Songs, Isiah, Jeremiah, Ezekiel, Hosea, Joel, Amos, Obadiah, Micah, Nahum, Habakkuk, Zepheniah, Haggai Zecheriah, Malachi, Mathhew, Mark, Luke, John, Acts, Romans, Corinthians (1+2), Galatians, Ephesians, Phillipians, Colossians, Thessalonians (1+2), Timothy (1+2), Titus, Hebrews, 1 Peter, Jude or Revelation.
The left is reaching the point now where they eat their own.
Can't Cornel West see, if Obama can hide his birth certificate, and America is OK with that, why can't Hillary hide her emails?
Sad isn't it?
I mean Obama is bbblllaaaccckk, and Hillary is a wwwoommmaaannn.
So America, it's either you are a racist or a misogynist.
What happened to America's most exciting black scholar?
Has something happened to Thomas Sowell, Walter E. Williams, or Justice Clarence Thomas that I haven't heard about?
Does Cornel West wear gloves, or is that just the Rent is Too Damn High guy?
/racism
"West asked how I escaped being dubbed an “Obama hater” when I was just as critical of the president as he was. I shared my three-part formula for discussing Obama before black audiences: Start with love for the man and pride in his epic achievement; focus on the unprecedented acrimony he faces as the nation’s first black executive; and target his missteps and failures. "
Then the author does the same thing to West.
West reminds me of a certain type of character that populates academic circles such as my workplace. Advanced degree but not really qualified to work at McDonald's. So they carve themselves out an incredibly specific niche then cling to that niche at all costs. As the novelty of their "research" fades, they get more and more desperate and make more outrageous claims, leading them to alienate their former sponsors and friends, who increasingly view them with contempt.
But by then they have tenure.
You'd figure that any politician would understand that electoral politics is all about winning because, whatever your agenda, you won't get to enact it if you don't win. Yet West couldn't understand that?
I have a new phrase: Ideological trauma.
It's what can happen when a liberal is capable of being mugged by reality, which equals a conversion to a more conservative viewpoint. The rub is that so few liberals pay much attention to reality.
It's also what happens when a socialist racemonger is disillusioned by a black president because of unreal expectations. He doesn't realize that you never go full socialist. That it has to be done piecemeal so the American public doesn't get too restive. First the medical industry, then the internet, etc.
Something irrational is going on.
The same could be said about much of what occurs in the Whitehouse. MANY things irrational going on there. But what we are witnessing is a formerly reliable black racemonger straying off the plantation and being neutralized by a fellow racemonger. However, he cannot be sent to a gulag for "treatment" of his "mental illness," as Dyson would probably like to do. "Othering" is the closest we have to the Russian practice.
Drago said......the French have many words that suffice for "surrender"...
The French, like most Europeans, think there is honor in both victory or defeat.
American's seem to feel that fighting to a zugzwang has the most honor.
Alas, most countries can't spend $6 Trillion bucks on zugzwang's...
Cornel West is a no talent con artist.
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