Peter Morales: Woo, good
evening and welcome to the Ware Lecture. [APPLAUSE] The Ware lecture is our
most distinguished lecture of General Assembly. Since 1922, we have
welcomed notable people to share their insights
and to challenge us, people such as Howard
Thurman, Linus Pauling, Shirley Chisholm, and Sister
Simone Campbell. [APPLAUSE] Tonight we continue
this tradition with our Ware lecturer the
Reverend Dr. Cornel West. [APPLAUSE] Cornel West is a
prominent and provocative Democratic intellectual. He graduated magna cum laude
from Harvard in three years and obtained is MA and PhD
in Philosophy at Princeton. He has taught at Union
Theological Seminary, Yale, Harvard, and the
University of Paris. He appears frequently on the
Bill Maher show, CNN, C-SPAN, and the Tavis
Smiley PBS TV show. He has written 19 books. He's best known for his
classic Race Matters. His new book Black
Prophetic Fire offers a fresh
perspective on six revolutionary African
American leaders. These books are published
by our own Beacon Press. [APPLAUSE] And I recently
learned that he's, as far as we know, the
only Beacon author ever to interrupt a book
tour to get arrested. [APPLAUSE] At a demonstration
demanding justice for the killing of Michael
Brown in Ferguson, Missouri, he was handcuffed and jailed. Cornel West has a
passion to communicate to a vast variety of
audiences in order to keep alive the legacy
of Martin Luther King, Jr., a legacy of telling
the truth and bearing witness to love and justice. Few people have the reach
that Cornel West has to bring the issues
of racial justice to the consciousness of
people across the globe. What a privilege it is to
have him with us this evening. Please join me in welcoming
the Reverend Dr. Cornel West. [APPLAUSE] Cornel West: What a blessing
for me to be here at the UUA. My god, there is a sweet
spirit in this place. Yes, it is. I want to salute to musicians. I come from a tradition that
says the Spirit will not descend without song. Give it up for the musicians. [APPLAUSE] I want to salute the
captain of the ship, my dear brother, my new friend President
Peter Morales-- Peter Morales. [APPLAUSE] He's not just visionary
and courageous, but I was just with my
Latino students in Atlanta for a gathering
of all the Latino students from the seminary
that we were saying, it's a beautiful thing when
you have high quality people, especially from the chocolate
side of town, including our Latino brothers and
sisters-- Peter Morales, the first Latino leader of
the Unitarian Universalists Association. [APPLAUSE] And I salute his wonderful,
wonderful companion and wife Sister Phyllis. Sly Stone says it's
a family affair, and anytime you talk
about leadership, you are talking about family. I was blessed to just
meet your visionary leader from just a few years ago, my
dear brother Bill Sinkford. Bill Sinkford's in the house. [APPLAUSE] Thank you so much
for your witness. Thank you so much for your work. God bless your family. God bless your loved
ones, absolutely. And I just heard my dear
brother William Schulz engaged in such a high
quality conversation with a spiritual giant, a
moral titan, namely John Lewis. Let's give it up
for all of them. [APPLAUSE] What a magnificent gathering
you Unitarian Universalists have brought to
Portland, Oregon. [APPLAUSE] And then to invite a free,
Holy Ghost, black Baptist to speak to my UU brothers
and sisters of all colors, I want to thank you. I want to thank you. I want to thank Sister Delia
for being so magnificent when first greeting
me when I arrived, and then I met the Black
Lives Matters of young people. I met the whole host of young
people for a good 45 minutes, and I left with so much so
joy, and my heart transmitting and bequeathing the best
of a tradition of struggle to the younger generation--
oh, yes, oh yes. And I want to come to you
in all of the sincerity that I can muster and say
to you unequivocally that I am who I am because
somebody loved me, somebody cared for me,
somebody attended to me, and anywhere I go
and any stand I take, I will never forget
those who came before, who gave so much,
who sacrificed so much that a young, black
brother could kind of stay on the straight and
narrow in America. That's my kind of piety,
not uncritical deference to dogma, not blind
obedience to the doctrine, but remembering those
who came before. That's what piety actually is. [APPLAUSE] The highest honor I shall
ever receive in life, beyond all that Harvard
and Yale and Princeton could offer of me, is to be the
second son of the late Clifton and the present
Irene B. West, and to be the brother of Clifton
and Cynthia and Cheryl, and to be of cracked vessel
produced by a Shiloh Baptist Church on the chocolate side
of Sacramento, California. oh, yes. And as we were reminded
with such eloquence just a few minutes ago from
our dear brother John Lewis, product of his own parents,
Willie Mae Lewis and Eddie Lewis, and product of that black
church in gut-bucket Jim Crow Alabama in Pike County, right
outside of Troy, Alabama, that, in fact, any serious
talk about struggle for freedom and
struggle for justice has to radically call into
question any conception of ourselves being self-made. We didn't give our
birth to ourselves. We didn't learn the
language on our own. Somebody had to inject
some love inside of us. Somebody had to try to make
sure that we were open enough that we could grow and
develop and mature. Yes, it is true. By the time I was
able and blessed to go to Harvard and
Yale and Princeton, they were magnificent
supplements with wonderful teacher--
the Richard Rortys and the Stanley Cavells and the
Israel Schefflers and Sheldon Wolins and Walter Kaufmanns
and Martha Nussbaums John Rawls and Hillary Putnams and on
and on and on-- indeed, yes. But, oh, let us be clear that
we begin with a critical self inventory. Who are we and what
kind of human beings will we choose to be in our
short move from our mama's womb to tomb. That's the fundamental question. And what I love about the Ware
Lecture is that a Henry Ware, Sr. and Henry Ware,
Jr. is wrestling with that fundamental
question of what does it mean to be human. We know Henry Ware,
Jr. was a mentor to the greatest man of
letters ever produced in the history of this country. His name is Ralph Waldo Emerson. Give it up for brother Ralph. Give it up for brother Ralph. [APPLAUSE] He may have left the
tradition of Unitarianism in the 19th century,
but it never left him. It's like being a Catholic. Even when you're a lapsed
Catholic like James Joyce, you're still a
Catholic [INAUDIBLE]. It leaves that UU mark on you. I want to begin with an
epigram from the greatest of all public intellectuals
in the history of the United States, and I'm not talking
about the great John Dewey, though he's a grand candidate. I'm not talking about Edmond
Wilson, though he is also another candidate. I'm not talking about Susan
Sontag-- oh, how magnificent she was in her essays. But I'm talking WEB DuBois. [APPLAUSE] WEB DuBois-- and in 1957
at the age of 89 years old, he decides to write love letters
to the younger generation. It's almost as if
he knew that there would be another wave of
marvelous, new, moral and spiritual militancy among
a younger generation, who are hungry and
thirsty-- something beyond the superficial
culture of spectacle. WEB DuBois-- six
years, he's emerged from a court, handcuffs, working
with the Peace Information Center, charged by
the US government of working for the Soviet Union. They found no evidence,
but at 83 years, he is already living
roughly on the house of rest at 31 Grace Court
in Brooklyn Heights in the greatest borough
in the world, Brooklyn. And he has one major
visitor once a week. He's living on the house
arrest in Philadelphia. In 1939 he was the most popular
Negro in the whole world, and now he's on
the house arrest. His name was Paul Robeson. [APPLAUSE] And DuBois told Paul
Robeson, somehow we've got to prepare
the younger generation to be spiritually
fortified, intellectually sophisticated, morally
fearful but also humble. And so he embarks on the
writing of three novels. Can you imagine at 89
years old, you embark on the writing of three novels? The first novel was call
The Ordeal of Mansart. He turned to page 275
in that first novel, and he says, I've been wrestling
with four questions all of my life, and
every generation has to come to terms
with these questions. The first question, how shall
integrity face oppression? How shall integrity
face oppression? Oh, for me that's one of the
most fundamental challenges of our day because we live
in an age of mendacity. It's an age in which
a lies are ubiquitous, not just in the
business community, even though when you
turn the business page you scandal after
scandal after scandal. There used to be a labor
page, but that's gone. Oh, that's a sign of the
weakness of the organized working class, isn't it? But it's true; among
our young people, 58% say they cheat regularly
on exams because it's a question of just
getting over being obsessed with the
11th commandment, thou shall not get caught. Of course, even in our churches,
my church Shiloh Baptist Church, we had pastors,
now more and more we've got CEOs running
the churches-- the market model's setting in. Megachurches, but not
a lot of mega-courage. [APPLAUSE] Megachurches, not
a lot of mega-love. Megachurches, not a
lot of mega-justice. Megachuches, huge building fund,
but very weak prison ministry. Megachuches, prosperity gospel,
chamber of commerce religion-- mendacity ubiquitous, and the
younger generation hungry, thirsty for integrity. Now by integrity, I
don't mean purity. Each and every one of us,
not free of spot or wrinkle. Each and every one of us,
fallible, finite, no one of us have a monopoly on
Truth capital T. But at the same
time, integrity has to do with what is the
quality of your courage and your willingness to
bear witness radically against the grain
even if you have to sacrifice something precious,
including your popularity in the name of integrity. That's what DuBois
was talking about. [APPLAUSE] And let us be very clear, that
to be fundamentally committed to integrity makes
you counter-cultural in an age of mendacity. You have to cut so
radically against the grain. Intellectual integrity, the
quest for unarmed truth, and we know the
condition of truth is always to allow
suffering to speak. And if you don't allow
those who are suffering to raise their voices and play
a role in the shaping of all of our destinies, you can rest
be assured that mendacity is operating in a powerful manner. Thank God for the Supreme
Court that I'd begun to think didn't have the capacity
to speak [? for them. ?] Thank God the voices of
our precious gay brother and lesbian sisters and
bisexuals and trans peoples can now be heard in the
sense of having their dignity and humanity affirmed to love
in whatever form want to love. That is worth celebrating. [APPLAUSE] That's worth celebrating, y'all. Even in this dark moment with
all of the thickness of evil, that's worth celebrating. [APPLAUSE] Thank God for our courageous
politicians-- the slice that we discern. If it were predicated on the
fickleness of our politicians, who check their
deepest convictions too often by checking the polls,
and then say they're evolving. How you're going
to evolve if you're committed to the humanity
and dignity of every person. People don't need political
calculations at certain times. You just need moral conviction. Take a stand, politicians. Be honest. There's something bigger
than your next election. [APPLAUSE] I don't care what party
you're talking about. I don't care what color
the politician is. We're looking for integrity. [APPLAUSE] But then the intellectual
integrity-- and I want to highlight
intellectual integrity because as a black Baptist myself,
and I'm critical but also unapologetic about being
a gut-bucket Holy Ghost black Baptist now. Because we did
produce Otis Redding. I know you all still
trying to do that now. We produced Aretha Franklin. I know, you was working on it. I understand. We produced Donny Hathaway. We produced some folk now. But I love your commitment
to intellectual integrity, your fundamental commitment
to unarmed truth, and if it leads you outside
of the institutional church, that's fine,
because you for you. That's what it is
to have integrity, and you take a stand
based on your commitment to intellectual integrity. Shatter the dogma,
shatter the doctrine if it doesn't make sense to you. [APPLAUSE] Nothing wrong with that. Free-thinker, cut against
the grain, be transgressive. But at the same time,
as I said, truth is always a two-edged sword
because we all fall short. I take very seriously
what the great Samuel Beckett, a lapsed Irish
Protestant, one of the greatest artists of the most
barbaric of all centuries, the 20th century-- he said, try
again, fail again, fail better. Try again, fail
again, fail better. That's what he says in a
Worstward Ho, his last piece of prose fiction,
and that's a reminder of our own deep humanity. It's a reminder of what it
is to be tied to the earth. But it's the aspiration
that I'm talking about. What DuBois wanted the younger
generation to understand, what DuBois wanted to see in
the black freedom movement, what he wanted to see in
the women's movement, wanted to see in the
worker's movement, what he wanted to see in the
movement of our precious disable brothers and sisters,
what he wanted to see in the
anti-imperial movement, keeping track of
empires, what he wanted to see in the
immigration movement, keeping track of those folk
who want to return to what used to be their land-- Mexicans
coming back to what used to be Mexico-- Texas,
California, Arizona, New Mexico. He once said, I want to
keep track of the integrity, beginning with the
intellectual integrity. Who is willing to tell
the truth-- good and bad, up and down, insights as well
as blindnesses of ourselves first, then our communities,
then our nation, then our world? I've got a lot of vanilla
brothers and sisters that walk with me and say,
Brother West, Brother West. you know, I'm not a
racist any longer. Grandma's got work to do,
but I've transcended that. [LAUGHTER] And I say to them, I'm
Jesus-loving, free, black man, and I've tried to be so for
55 years, and I'm 62 now, and when I look in
the depths of my soul I see white supremacy because
I grew up in American. And if there's white
supremacy in me, my hunch is you've got
some work to do too. [APPLAUSE] Oh, yes, we're not
talking about purity. We're not talking
about being pristine. What is the quality
of your struggle? Now push it back to learn
how to die, in order to learn how to live, to
murder what's inside of us. Too much male
supremacy inside of me. I grew up in America. Too much anti-Jewish
sensibility-- there is no Christian
civilization in the history of the globe
that has not been shot through with anti-Jewish hatred. We've got to come
to terms with that. [APPLAUSE] Anti-Muslim, anti-Arab--
hatred shot through. And then this notion--
oh, this notion I abhor-- that somehow an American
life has more value than a life in other parts of the world. [APPLAUSE] Oh, my God, I say to my
dear brother Mr. President, thank you for apologizing
for that one American life that one of those bombs of
your drones dropped and killed. But do you know it was 233
children in Yemen and Somalia and Pakistan and
Afghanistan and Libya? Apologize to them, too. [APPLAUSE] Let's be consistent. Let's have integrity. Let's tell the true
across the board. [APPLAUSE] This is not a political
game we're playing. This is a matter of
integrity, and no tradition has a monopoly on it, be it
Christian, Judaic, Buddhist, agnostic, atheistic,
neopagan, postmodern pagan, or premodern pagan. [LAUGHTER] But this is precisely
the ways in which we can create a dynamic common ground. That's what the great DuBois,
with tears in his eyes, was trying to transmit to
the younger generation. And, of course, the night
he died, John Lewis, Mahalia Jackson, and Walter
Reuther and so many others, including
our dear brother Martin, told America about a
dream that they had. He could see the
aspiration, the integrity-- intellectual integrity--
truth-telling, but also spiritual integrity,
and that's my tradition. And I know you all have your
own very rich tradition. I just want to be
personal tonight because I come
from a black people for 400 years terrorized,
traumatized, stigmatized, but the best of our
tradition is what? Generating the love
supreme of a John Coltrane, the love ethic of
a Martin Luther, Jr., the love sensibility
of a Frederick Douglass and a Ida B. Wells-Barnett,
and in the music of a Stevie Wonder. What is it about these people
that in the face of being terrorized, they
continuously dish the love? That's partly what
Charleston is all about. Those folk don't
come from the sky. They come out of a tradition,
fundamentally committed to love in the end, no
matter what the situation is. [APPLAUSE] Oh, yes. [APPLAUSE] I tell my fellow Americans,
when you see Negroes, you ought to give them
a standing ovation. Thank you for Martin King. Thank you for John Coltrane. Thank you for Aretha Franklin. Thank you for A.
Philip Randolph. They don't fall from the sky. [APPLAUSE] They hone it out. They work it out. John Lewis doesn't
come from the sky. And it's the leaven in the loaf. Because if black
people had attempted to terrorize terroristic
white brothers and sisters in the same
way they were terrorized, there'd have been a civil
war every generation. We wouldn't have an
American democracy. There'd be civil
strife so pervasive there'd be terrorist cells in
every chocolate neighborhood. None of us would be able to even
talk about American democracy. And it doesn't mean the black
people, we black people, have a monopoly on
truth or goodness, and we certainly don't
have a monopoly on beauty. Just look at me. [LAUGHTER] But that's all right. We're talking about
human beings who choose, who have the courage
to aspire to integrity, and we're living in a moment
in which integrity had so thoroughly declined and
decayed that it looked as if the very raw stuff that's
necessary for social motion and social momentum and
social movement was gone. Because it doesn't
make any difference how correct your analysis
is or how sophisticated your view of the world
is, if you lack integrity, the movement itself still is
sounding brass and tinkling cymbol-- it's empty. [APPLAUSE] And this is very important
because those of us who have been blessed to teach
in higher education, we've seen this obsession with
smartness, smartness, smartness. it's like the use of
the word "obvious." You know, people use
it going, obviously, obviously-- no, that's
not obvious to me. "Obviously, obviously--"
not obvious to me. Sometimes what you think
is obvious is obscure. But if you don't find it
obvious, you're on the outside, because they want an inner
circle of the smart ones. And we have generated
a whole culture, market-driven, obsessed with
titillation and stimulation, and puts a premium on
smartness and dollars-- smartness and dollars. The heroes are the "smart
ones," and I say to myself, let the phones be smart. We have to be wise and
aspire to integrity. [APPLAUSE] There were a whole
lot of smart Nazis. There's a whole lot of
smart white supremacists, a whole lot of smart
male supremacists, a lot of smart
homophobes, a whole lot of smart imperialists. We're looking for something
more than smartness, and I'm not promoting stupidity. I'm talking about wisdom. [APPLAUSE] Courage, that's what
DuBois had mind. And one of the
messes-- and I know Brother Sekou, Reverend
Sekou, is here somewhere. I don't know where he is though. I know he's here. But I want to salute
him because he spent so much magnificent time. Where is Brother Sekou? Where is he? There he is, right by the wall. There he his. Wave a little bit,
brother, wave a little bit. We love you. We love you, brother. [APPLAUSE] This brother's been
arrested so many times, it reminds me of
Stokely Carmichael and John Lewis and Martin King. But we try to tell
the young folk, this movement is
about integrity first. Don't [INAUDIBLE] movement
as a political movement first and foremost. It was go spiritual and moral
movement that put integrity at the center, and that's
why it affected it our souls and touched our humanity. This is not some calculation
of interest groups. This is about what
it means to be human. [APPLAUSE] Oh, yes, but that second
question DuBois raises, what does honesty do in
the face of deception? What does it mean to aspire
to be an honest person? And by honesty, I'm talking
about the willingness to engage in what Jane
Austen called constancy, to be morally consistent. So when you do have righteous
indignation and holy anger and moral outrage,
it has as much to do with the ecological
catastrophe, which is as evil as the moral
catastrophe of white supremacy or male supremacy
or wealth inequality or the economic catastrophe
of wealth inequality. 1% of the population owning
42% percent of the wealth, and 22% of America's precious
children of all colors living in poverty in the
richest nation in the world. That's a moral abomination. That's spiritually
obscene-- obscene. [APPLAUSE] But the same moral outrage
ought to be connected as well to the homophobia, the
anti-Jewish hatred, anti-Arab, anti-Muslim hatred. We have got to be
consistent across the board. We can't be honest within
our own little silos and then draw walls
and think that somehow the moral and spiritual
energy does not overflow. What America needs
is a coalescing of the moral outrage,
ensuring that it's filtered through love
and through justice and through truth, but it is
militant-- militant, precisely because it requires those
who have been walking around with their backs humped over to
straighten up and take a stand. And Brother Martin used
to say, [INAUDIBLE] time. Every day, people
straighten their backs up. They're going somewhere. Because folk can't ride
your back unless it's bent. Straighten it out. [APPLAUSE] And what does that mean? It reminds me of the
black man who was always in the front of the rally of
the great Marcus Garvey, who hated white supremacy. He didn't hate white
brothers and sisters; he hated white supremacy. But he always had a black
person with a banner that said, the Negro is not afraid. Even if he was shaken,
[SHIVERING SOUNDS] the Negro is not afraid. Almost like Kanye West when
they talked about George Bush-- G-G-G-G-G-G-George B-B-B-B-Bush
doesn't care about black people. You see, Brother
Kanye's not my cousin but I thought your flow
was better than that. No, the Negro was afraid. All of us are afraid
about our careers, about being unpopular, not being
accepted by the mainstream. Some of us will be
engaged and have to wrestle with
character assassination. There always must
be a few who are willing to die based on the
love of the people you're willing to fight for, given
what you're up against. Now, martyrdom is not
normative for the moment. Everybody can't
die, but you've got to have a slice of
folk who are willing to in their truth telling. And when you have that,
then, with the integrity and the honesty, it's a new day. And what is happening
in Ferguson, what is happening in Staten
Island, what is happening in Baltimore, what is
happening in Charleston is that people who have been
afraid for so long, been sleepwalking for so long. And I don't need to
remind my UU brothers and sisters of the great
Henry David Thoreau. When he went off to Walden
Pond, what did he say? I want to do something,
wake up my neighbors from their sleep walking. just Gamble and Huff with the
song sung by the musicians. What are the
conditions under which folk straighten their
backs up, no longer afraid? What are you doing, Martin? Martin said, what cowardice
is more evil than violence, and I'm a pacifist. Think about that. Gandhi said the same thing in is
essay on the swords-- cowardice is more evil than violence,
and I'm an absolute pacifist, Gandhi says. The fear, the sense of
being intimidated-- and, of course, the history of
black folk is precisely that. They try to niggerize all
black people to make sure that we're so fearful and
are scared and intimidated that we defer to the
policies that be, and then we believe we're less
beautiful and less intelligent and less moral. And when you shattered
that white supremacist lie, same is true with the
male supremacist lie. All sisters of all
colors, you know that man sitting next
to you has a brain that works much better than yours. What a lie. Get away from that intimidation. Get away from that fear. That brother got the same
potential and possibility relative to his
capacity that you do. Don't believe that lie. Shatter the fear. Shatter the sense of being
afraid-- straighten up. [APPLAUSE] But keep the love
at the center of it. [APPLAUSE] Honesty, third query,
what does decency do in the face of insult? These sound like
pretty basic notions-- integrity, honesty, decency. I think we need a spiritual and
moral awakening and renaissance around integrity, honesty, and
decency, cuts across color, sexual orientation,
gender, nation. It's something that
people are hungry for, given the fact that
we're living in the most commodified marketized
and commercialized culture in the history of the
world, and the market has never been fundamentally
about integrity. [APPLAUSE] This is not to say that
you haven't had people with integrity
engaging in contract. You have, and it's
worse now than ever. It doesn't mean that
Wall Street greed is new, but the Wall Street
greed now is a much worse than it was 40 years ago. It is we're running amok. It's out of control,
and yet what? 2008, massive market
manipulation, insider trading, fraudulent activity-- how
many Wall Street executives at the top went to jail? Zero, not one. Under Ronald Reagan, not known
for being on the cutting edge of for social justice, 1,100
of the S&Lers went to jail. That sends a sign
to Wall Street. People ask me why I get upset
with Brother Barack Obama when he brought in Tim
Geithner and Larry Summers and other-- I thought you were
going to have a Main Street government. You've got a Wall
Street government. I don't care what color you are. We were fighting for
honesty, decency, integrity. You disappoint us in that sense. [APPLAUSE] 1% of the population
in the last six years got 98% of the income growth at
the very moment in which these decrepit school
systems in inner city, generating so much soul murder
every week, every month, every year, with
levels of literacy and no access to
arts program, but we wonder why they don't have
bands like Count Basie or Duke Ellington or James Brown
or Lakeside or Sly Stone. They can't play
their instruments because they don't
have the instruments. [APPLAUSE] Or we wonder why they can
make a million dollars and sometimes not
even sing in tune, because they don't have a
pitch teacher an Carmen McCrae and Nat King Cole turn
over in their graves because they wanted to get it
right when they sang a song. That's honesty. That's decency. And it gets even deeper
than that, because, you see, I grew up old school. Now, some of y'all might
remember The Dramatics and The Del Fonics and The Whispers
and The Main Ingredient and the Emotions and the Jones
Girls and The Marvelettes and The Temptations. These were folk who were so
disciplined in the cultivation of lifting that voices that
they could do it by bouncing off against other
voices, so that they had a tenderness and a
sweetness and a gentleness that touched our souls, even as
we were involved in struggle. What groups do you see among
the magnificent young generation these days singing
together like The Whispers? Audience: [INAUDIBLE]. Cornel West: That's right. That's one. What bands do you see other
than The Roots on television? Because it's all so
individualistic and isolated, with just that one person
behind the microphone running his or her voice. Some of them are
lyrical geniuses. No, Kanye is, and so
is Jay-Z. No doubt Beyonce is the greatest
entertainer of her generation, but everybody knows
Beyonce ain't no Aretha. [APPLAUSE] Because there's a
difference between exploring the dark corners
of your own soul and singing from the
depths of your soul and touching other
souls, so that you come from a tradition
of soul stirrers like Sam Cooke and Johnny
Taylor and Lou Rawls, not just body stimulation on the stage,
moving, shaking, your thing. I ain't got nothing against
sisters shaking their thing. I believe in autonomy. I believe in a woman's freedom. But I want a woman to
use everything that's gone to her-- her heart, her
mind, her soul, her body, her grandmama, her
granddaddy, what she learned in the studio, what she
learn from the teachers and the mentors, and
then give it all, give it to the audience in such a
way that the audience is so empowered that they
might even forget about you, and begin to wrestle with
what's going on inside of them. That's what it is
to be a servant, And somewhere I
read, he or she is greatest among on you
will be your servant. Well have quality of service
to the weak and the vulnerable, to the least of the these,
to the orphan and the widow and the motherless
and the fatherless. That's the tradition
I'm talking about. That's the tradition
DuBois is talking about when he's talking
about integrity, honesty, and decency. And the last query, and
this is, in some ways, the most difficult
one, because we don't like to talk about
it-- DuBois says, how does virtue
meet brute force? Because anybody who
has the audacity to be fundamentally committed to
integrity, honesty, and decency may soon or later have to come
to terms with brute force, with repression-- with
the FBI, with the CIA, and a variety of
different forces that will try to
silence you, that will try to make you so afraid,
or to make you last sellout. They'll sell your soul
for a mess of pottage because they think that
the new wave of young folk might begin to be a serious
challenge to the status quo, and that's where the issue
of spirituality plays a role. And again, in many ways, I
fall back on my own tradition. Death, where is thy sting? Grave, where is thy victory? There must be those who are
willing to look the brute force in the face-- Oscar
Lopez Rivera in jail, Mumia Abul-Jamal in
jail, Sundiata in jail, Assata Shakur in Cuba. Look the brute
force in the face, had to come to terms with the
killing of Medgar, Malcolm, and Martin, had to come to
terms with the vicious murders of Bobby Hutton in Oakland
and Fred Hampton in Chicago. Yes, that is the
cost oftentimes. So what, in the
language of Miles Davis? So what? Is that all you've got
to offer, powers that be? We have a love so deep. We have a commitment to
justice, since justice is what love looks like in
public, just like tenderness is what love feels
like in private. [APPLAUSE] We've got a
commitment to a cause. Some of us call it
the beloved community. Some of us call it
radical democracy. Some of us call it
the best of America. Some of us call it the
best of the world house. Whatever your
language is, just make sure you're putting in that
integrity, honesty, decency and virtue at the
center of it, and you are spiritually and
morally prepared to be able to go hand in
hand with the new ways that are trying to transform
an America so now diseased by increasing wealth
inequality, so diseased by vicious legacies of white
supremacy and male supremacy. And even, given
the Supreme Court, let us remind our
precious gay brothers and lesbian sisters and
bisexuals and transgender, homophobia is still
very much alive, even after the marriage--
even after the marriage-- which means of struggle goes
on, which mean in the end-- and I'll close on a
blue note-- in the end, if we're serious about
that four-fold quest, if we're serious
about the analysis from ecological catastrophe
all the way across to moral and spiritual and political
and economic catastrophes, then we're going
to have to choose to be a blues people, which
means that America either learns something from the
blues people in your midst, or you're going to
lose your democracy. Because terrorism,
and trauma, and stigma is not new for some of us. Catastrophe is not new. There has never been a
Negro problem in America. There has been catastrophes
visited on black people. Don't reduce the catastrophic
to the problematic. There's never been
a woman's problem. Catastrophe has been
visited on women. There's never been an
indigenous people's problem. Catastrophes visited
on indigenous peoples. There's never been a gay
problem and a lesbian problem. Catastrophes have been
visited on gays and lesbians. There's never been a
disability problem. Catastrophe vistied on--
that's the blues perspective. That's the blues
perspective, and we just lost the king of the blues,
BB King, and what did he say? Nobody loves me but my mama,
and she might be jiving, too. That's the blues. But BB King says in
the face of the blues, I'm still aspiring to integrity,
honesty, decency, and virtue with a little help from
Lucille with a style and a smile that is
unreplaceable and irreversible. America, do we
have what it takes? Always an open question. It could be we just experienced
the decline of an empire that goes the same way of Rome. Depends on what we do. But one thing that
puts a smile on my face that when I come and see my
brothers and sisters from UU, feel the authenticity
of your spirit. I know you're not
saviors or messiahs, but I have a feeling deep inside
of me going all the way down to the bowels of my existence
that we have got folk in this room who are willing
to go down swing like Ella Fitzgerald and Muhammad Ali. [APPLAUSE]
I really enjoyed his talk and it got folks fired up.
I was there with a bunch of high-school age youth and they were also pretty inspired by Cornel and the whole GA experience