Good evening and welcome to today's meeting of the Commonwealth Club You can find the Commonwealth club on the Internet at Commonwealth Club org See the club's videos on YouTube and catch up with the club on Facebook and Twitter I'm Cheryl Davis executive director of the San Francisco Human Rights Commission and your moderator for today's program the San Francisco Human Rights Commission is a city agency mandated to address causes of In problems resulting from prejudice and tolerance bigotry and discrimination in San Francisco and has been pleased to provide assistance with this program tonight and now It's my pleasure to introduce today's distinguished guest Dr. Cornel West professor of the practice of public philosophy at Harvard University professor emeritus at Princeton University and author of the book race matters Dr. Cornel West says his passion is to keep alive the legacy of the Reverend. Dr. Martin Luther King jr. A Legacy of telling the truth and bearing witness to love and justice in addition to his post at Harvard and Princeton West has taught at the Union Theological Seminary Yale and the University of Paris He graduated magna cum laude from Harvard in three years and obtained his master's and doctorate and philosophy at Princeton in a polarized country with issues of voter disenfranchisement police shootings of unarmed African Americans and discussions of reparations at the forefront our guests will explore the possibilities for improved life outcomes and Opportunities for black people particularly in cities such as San Francisco as the wealth gap continues to swell in commemoration of the 55th anniversary of the San Francisco Human Rights Commission Which was created in response to anti black racism and businesses Government services and community investments. We're going to have a conversation with one of the nation's most prominent and provocative civil rights champions about America's and San Fran Cisco's Present and future racial equity, please welcome. Dr. Cornel West So First and foremost I have to thank dr. West for once again Accepting the call to come to San Francisco and have a conversation It has been an interesting journey 55 years the HRC was created to address initially at the heart of it anti blackness and when we think about Your call or your your call from? Within to kind of answer and push forward this idea of love and justice And we think about race relations today. I have one of my favorite books Dr. King's book strength to love and when we think about the call To address it, right? This race relations piece in these conversations in this book one of the lines that he has is that we have to have the honesty to confront shattered dreams and I think about the work that you've been doing and look at where we are today versus where we were 55 years ago, right. What is that honest conversation look like for you. Mmm-hmm Well first I want to just thank you for the work that you do. I want to salute your visionary leadership Let's give it up for ideas Absolutely, and I also want to salute your sister. I know your sisters here somewhere wherever she is She's saying last year and you see I come out of a tradition in which song is not ornamental and decorative that's constitutive and integral to Who I am and if I could just sing a song tonight Oh In such a way that it unsettles you Then it would be a salute to to your sister and the others the Aretha Franklin's and these Slide stones and others who constitute so much of that tradition, you know It's 52 years ago that the great John Coltrane just died a few days ago And that's part of the legacy as well. I think any time we talk about politics We really need to talk about the artists because the fundamental question when it comes to black people wrestling But the vicious legacy of white supremacy and this Empire is what does it mean to be human? What kind of courage would kind of vision what cost so we wasn't really to bear? What kind of risks are we really willing to take and the fact that here we are here now This is the Commonwealth Club 1903. He goes back. You know what I mean? Edwin F Adams its first presentation he gave he said we want to find the truth and set it loose in the world 1903 that's vanilla by the way up power elite with President San Francisco State President of Berkeley president of banks and so forth and then in the space of Harry bridges What a fascinating class bridge born in Australia Fundamentally socialized Radicalized by the critique not just of capitalism but of white supremacy as well So the international longshoremen will become not just a site institutionally that will exemplify various kinds of struggles for justice But would be open to buzz like Martin Luther King jr And Fannie Lou Hamer and Stokely Carmichael those are just not names in a pantheon. Those are human beings who decided in there all imperfection to try to be forces for good I'm looking at brother Willie Brown straight out of Texas and San Francisco eighty-five years young On fire give it up for this brother, right? Yeah Yeah, Oh fire. Yeah We go back to my native Sacramento Speaker of the House and I've always been an outsider. He's the insider That's very important. We need a dialectical interplay between the ones on the outside who really just bring all kind of wireless And the critique and then the ends on the inside to give them some space so they can kind of tilt the power In such a way that those slides don't call every day people have a dignity and a decency And so here we are 2000 1919 Kimball take a Colleague at Harvard Brown, Connecticut College. I mean one of the grimmest moments in the history of this Empire You got to be very honest about that It's unclear rather the front whether the fragile experiment in democracy can survive What I mean by that is not just rule of law but democratic sensibilities and Sentiments being cultivated by the citizenry and more and more the messages Survival of the slickest And the strong yes Which is a diametrically opposed notion of the tradition that produced me Which is one of you will be hated respond with the deepest forms of love You will be traumatized respond with the deepest forms of healing you will be terrorized for 400 years Respond with a commitment to freedom, which means you're not in it for popularity Don't want to put a Slap your grandmama in the grave by telling her that you succumb to the gutter Rather than held up certain Blood-stained banners the freedom integrity honesty generosity and truth telling and the condition of truth as always what? to allow suffering to speak There is no truth in a human condition Unless we listen to those in the language of Malcolm who are catching hail And that's the exact opposite we see in the White House and so many state houses, but not just in politics We've seen it more and more in our churches well in our mosque in our synagogue We've seen it more and more in our educational institutions where corporatization commodification commercialization money money money Status status status power power power and what kind of sign does that send to the our young people? Well, thank God when I was coming along we had ministers Professors we had politicians that said they would rather be in the language of the great Mary Ellen Pleasant you all know when Mary Ellen Pleasant was now the mother of human rights in California, right The first black woman who was a multi-millionaire. She was worth six hundred forty-seven million dollars in the 1840s, okay I'm gonna say that again Mary Ellen Pleasant before I'm out of jaywalker. She married a vanilla brother who dropped dead as she beheaded That be six hundred forty seven million dollars a day she had it what did she do She gave a million dollars to John Brown. He was the vanilla butter who loved black people more than many black people love themselves That's right a million dollars of John Brown deal with the Underground Railroad. Here's the cash I'm a real estate magnate take the money That's Marianne Pleasant, San Francisco San Francisco, but she is one moment in a larger tradition Some folks have less money and say take my service take my time. Take my energy I'm gonna focus on little Jamaal you focus on jameelah, I'm Gonna focus on Susan you focus on Jose and one of the wonderful things about the tradition that produced we black people Is that when the love is deep enough to start on the chocolate side down and it's real, right? It spills over to the vanilla side but sometimes but it doesn't stop there because That's the last thing you needed black people who love everybody but black people That's the last thing you need But if you love black people deep enough and it's real and concrete Then it's gonna move to the barrio. It's gonna move to the reservation with indigenous B It's gonna move to the Irish and the Jewish and the Polish because that love is something that is inside of you Something that you have experienced at the deepest level. That's why our musicians are so Paradigmatic, that's why they're the model Because we understand when John Coltrane's talking about Love Supreme. He's not just talking about the love of a slice, right? She's time of the love that begins with the least of these Those catchin hail in the language of Malcolm X and then spilling over then raising your voices So here we are the 2019 saying well, where are the voices that? are willing to tell the truth about The gangster in the White House who? Tell the truth about it But as we talked about less last year as well to recognize you call him a gangster now That's not a subjective expression as an objective condition Gangster the gangsters based on evidence Brother Willie Brown knows I grew up on the chocolate side of Sacramento. And I know there's gangster inside of me. I Know what it's like to be a gangster I grew up with some gangsters What I met Jesus and decided low and behold. I'm a redeemed Center now at gangster proclivities I'm honest about thugs and gangsters in high places Whatever color they come here to keep them accountable across the board, there's the primacy of the moral primacy of the spiritual that has a systemic analysis of the system under which We live which is one of Empire That's why we should never say this nation's the nation of immigrants. That's a lie When you're here on the neoliberal corporate media, you say to yourself. That's a lie Indigenous peoples were here Thousands and thousands and thousands any time they say Us slavery's America's original sin. That's a neoliberal lie That was the second sin, yeah, but don't say it's original We don't need to highlight black suffering in such a way that it down placed. Somebody else's suffering White supremacy began as an imperial attempt to engage in the stealing of this land for looking for go. That's, California story in part Gold Rush And what happens in a society in? which you View life as a gold rush I end up worshiping the golden calf And the golden rule becomes he or she rules who has the gold And those who have very little power pushed more and more to the margin. So we need voices Institutions like civil rights the Human Rights Commission and others. We need churches mosques synagogues Civic institutions trade unions professors Everyday people's raising their voices in the name of a love and justice That tells the truth about the people in power and brings pressure to bear to change. Yeah But it's hard these days in a market-driven society to even get the truth Just like in war truth is the first casualty So what he is in this? Battle feel that we find ourselves on It's hard to even get the people who tell the truth about their careers concerned about the next opportunity concerned about their particular move their upward mobility Strategic move what happened to the truth? Well But can I ask you so you gave a lot Like you you yeah, I had a bunch of questions all that you were saying But but on another book, I know everybody's looking forward to race matters revisiting that but this book black prophetic fire and you mentioned Ella Baker Oh Sam talked about inside outside game Right solutely and in this I was gonna say to you you are both the Prophet and a scholar. I feel like you you are Prophetic in in and of the work that you do but you said here I think in many ways Ella Baker is the most relevant of our historic figures when it comes to democratic forms of leadership When it comes to a deep and abiding love for not just black people in the abstract or poor people in the abstract but a deep commitment to their capacities and their abilities to think critically to organize themselves and to think systematically in terms of opposition to and transformation of a system and so as you talk about Where we are right now, and we look at what's happened what they call the squad, right? When we think about these women that are taking leadership, right? Where are we in that prophetic fire that you think about that you talk about the Ella Baker's of the world? Do those women represent that to you? Oh, absolutely It's within the electoral political system Which even requires a certain more? Special kind of courage you see it's one thing to tell the truth on the outside It's another thing when you get inside with the constructional constraints and you Recognize that if you say certain things you might lose your job again be cast in such a way That you no longer are effective within those circumscribed context That's what the electoral political system is you see and we'll have more time to talk about that as well You say and that's what varying so they like I don't claim power like To be inside of that system and brother Willie will tell us or you can suffocate in that okay Brother oh Because the permanent government is always big business They always already there They know you rotate and they not rotate who I remember we broke out next for David Dinkins And it had the first meeting I said brother David, you know, the permanent government's gonna be coming at you That's Wall Street what you're talking about brother West you'll find out. Oh No, I'm if I'm mayor of New York City, come on now man no no no no no Luther Vandross is the real mayor Either wonder got the freedom you locked in You locked in but we're gonna put pressure to to give you some more space So they're working people in poor people's interests and principals can have more resonance that have more gravity in that way and so it is I think in terms of of Where we are now with these four sisters, they to me have been exemplary in their courage and they're so young So young they have to deal with those vicious lies where their very lives are at stake just Got here just a few years ago a few decades ago in the United States from a blessed country named Somalia Somalia produced some great powerful figures there's another one sister Omar Puerto Rico, oh my god. What's having to Puerto Rico right now? Right, right. What a wrinkle still a colony Abuse old temples daughter just died. Laura just died two months ago Raising up hitting the street America has a colony you don't say And you think Philippines? Well, where do you think Guam was? What do you think Cuba was? What do you think Samoa? Where are we right now? It used to be Mexico how you think we got it Socratic dialogue Ulysses s grant said what are the most unjust wars in the history of the annals of war? Mexico lost half of this country that's called gentrification On a global scale Just come in grabbing power and land. This is my happy good to be mine cuz I want it, huh? Where'd that come from? Mike doesn't make right. We learned that and where we grew up That's gangster an orientation. You don't say we call it manifest destiny That's American imperialism. That's why America began as an empire. It was a corporation before it was the country It's always been concerned with resources. It's been those Americans of all colors who had the moral and spiritual maturity and courage to say we want to create a democratic experiment within the context of this imperial project But see most Americans don't even realize they live in an empire right most Americans didn't even know we bombed nine countries last year form in Africa five of them in the Middle East Most of them don't know we dropped 26,000 bombs Some of those bombs killed some people and I come from a tradition. I learned in Vacation Bible School to Shiloh Baptist Church Jesus loves the little children all the children yellow Ready yellow black and white. They are precious Y'all learn it in Texas and beer. That's right But as you say that those children are precious in Somalia Pakistan Afghanistan They precious in Palestine they pressed us in Tel Aviv They precious in Guatemala. They precious in Ethiopia across the board. How do we our selves to be used For a larger Democratic game. You can call it Human Rights and call it freedom You called equality, but it's just being a force for good because I'm not in the isms At all, I'm a Christian so I don't give it about worldly systems If you ain't got no love and it is sounding brass and tinkling cymbal for me, right? I don't care how correct your analysis he is If you're not willing to sacrifice something and cut against the grain, didn't you just pose an imposter ring? Then you're just acting like a peacock. I'm in the Eagles I'm not in the foilage. I'm in the fruits It's not what you seem and what you're wearing is what kind of fruit are you bearing? What kind of effects and consequences are at work and the people you meet the society you live in and the words you use and the grin that you leave and the laughs that you in that and that Is the best of America it's not just best of America. It's best for human spirit, but it's the best of America and we have a tradition of the best in America like Martin King and others just like we got a history of traditions of gangsters like the President And both of them are as American as apple pie That's why you just can't talk about getting rid of the president and going back to normal, right What you think normal North's mass incarceration decrepit schools massive unemployment and underemployment Grotesque wealth inequality, is that your normal? No, oh My god before Trump America was such a pleasant place. What kind of neighborhood you live? What kind of moral scope do you have in the neighborhood you live and you know all the hell people were catching a befo truck right even on Obama God bless him Symbolic and diamond and white supremacy. Hey, I broke there for at least one afternoon But I stopped that evening You know people mad at Dance three hours straight main MC heaven look like a boy scout. I was happy because that's a indictment of white supremacy in a symbolic way then the question becomes now what kind of substance have we tell my That's the question. Are we gonna focus on issues a race? We're gonna have a serious engagement with the new Jim Crow Are we gonna bail out homeowners rather than Wall Street? Are we gonna cut back on the national surveillance state? We're gonna cut back on dropping the bombs. Those are the issues of an empire That's WB Dubois That's Victoria Garvin, that's Angela Davis best Malcolm X Those are the free ones None of them have a monopoly on the truth. None of us do as person Some I'm a Christians like Martin some of them are Muslims like Malcolm. Someone were agnostic like James Baldwin in Audrey Lord, so my my I'd bisexual like Langston Hughes comes in a lot of different forms but what happened was we lost and we're losing contact with the best of our tradition and so we're ending up with these weak copies and Semblances and simulacra simulacra is a copy of a copy. Oh You see so when I was growing a bastion of something you sing about the real thing ain't nothing like the Real have you ever tried it for yourself? given a second hanger from someone else These days it's hard to get to real thing and the young people hungry for it and they get a copy. I Love Beyonce, she the greatest entertainer alive, but he ain't no Aretha When she comes to Coachella she is visionary courageous She brings the whole tradition with her Aretha Ella Billy Carmen she brought all of them with her she Elevated herself by bringing the whole tradition with her I salute Beyonce she understood that she's part of a tradition, but she also knows I'm queen bee she's the queen well, and that's not generational it has to do with the depth of spirituality a depth of courage that is manifest in the marriage of craft and imagination manifests in how you touch people's souls she's a soul stir that is the real thing when you stir people's souls like Sam Cooke and Johnny Taylor and Lou Rawls and young folks these days are hungry for that kind of real thing and it's there But they don't see it enough. They just don't see anything. They don't see it enough and begin to imitate the imitation They're gonna lose out on the real substance And if you lose out on the real substance that when it's time to be tested And by being tested you will be in the fire and that's when you find out who you really are And you dropped? When you dropped in the fire and recognized you not really ready You never really prepared You either gonna pose and posture like you are are you gonna tell the truth and say you know what? I'm in over my head just like the president. I'm in over my head And this is and I'm talking especially in the black community here But but as you talk about the black community you talk about tradition you talk about spirituality. One of the questions here is about Really the old-school way of one of the reasons I got initially on the Human Rights Commission is that certain things are still very taboo in the black community you talk about? LGBTQ issues when you talk about transgender issues and this question is about How do we deal with the discomfort? still within the black community sometimes to have those conversations and see people As people the humanity of folks to celebrate that to move beyond the old-school Traditions and ways of thinking but this is where the issue comes back to love again Comes back to love again and you see deep Cannot take self-emptying love Never goes out of style. I don't care what generation idiot So if you think that somehow you can love black people but not love James ball I'm not love Luther Vandross Because he's gay you need to check yourself. Oh You walk into your church and see that brother playing at, Oregon God bless it and everybody know he's gay is James Bond? Everybody know that? But you're gonna sit up there lie, hmm Just lying then you have folk in the pulpit well in the pew on the down-low Just be honest Just be candid and say we human being like everybody else loved coming to number different forms Don't make us better because we love an X&Y. Don't make us worse We just human and lo and behold we need to be accountable like everybody else Let's bring our resources our imaginations our courage together in order to be stronger forces for good across the board, but if you're going trunky love if you're gonna bottle it up say much to a patriarchy that Women can't preach right well or pit hot in the world You're gonna fight white supremacy with all of its various levels and only got one arm You ain't clear with both arms we gonna win but at least we can go down swinging with both And so in that sense, it's a matter of both moral and spiritual quality in terms of what goes into The embrace of those who have different ways in which their love is expressed But also very practically we need all the voices and I thank God I anthem has lift every voice And just say lift every straight boys Lift every voice But it doesn't say lift every echo You don't want no echo chambers Can't be a jazz man or blues woman without finding your voice You're just gonna be an echo didn't go to the quarry or what. Is that? What's that club? They got there carry out your Own voice like your fingerprint that's inside of each and every one of us and that's how we find our callings our vocations and in vocation grab Mama's voice in us granddad's Afterlife in our life. That's the caravan of love that the Isley Brothers singing about that's the tradition of love and justice that comes out of a hated people that opens itself to the world and that's What is leading partly toward? the the staleness of our society because there once was a time when we actually could go to major black institutions and voices and hear something free and Truthful May it may have the chance of a snowball in hell of being translated Because black freedom has always been a taboo In a white supremacist civilization the people could raise their voices they could walk like they free They can laugh like with your prior free man They could swing like Muhammad Ali free man They could sing like Ella was swinging swinging nothing. But what? freedom Stay away from the flatness of the notes be on top on the side through it everywhere, but on the note That's called a Blue Note That's freedom of a people who everyday unfree Jack Johnson free in the rain or only space in the whole white supremacist civilization was a ring That was the only space he could find fairness. He's knocking vanilla brothers out And he was rude as what a free man who was a major threat Because when the rules are fair Here come black folk it come Brown folk you come Asian folk here come white poor folk just set the rules in such a way that they're fair and you'll see your white supremacy and patriarchy and homophobia and transphobia begin to melt Not because anybody's better because rules are fair But all how hard it is to make the rules of things Somebody got to fight somebody got to live, but I got to die to do that. Right? Absolutely so you you reference because I know you are a lover of music and your Album and the song you did with Prince. Mr. Man. Oh, but we miss Frank. Oh And this this line in here mmm Listen ain't no sense in voting same song with a different name might not be in the back of the bus But it show feel just the same Ain't nothing fair about welfare Ain't no assistance in aids ain't nothing affirmative about your actions til you the people get paid mm-hmm and all this discussion back and forth about Voting rights and whether young people feel like it's worth voting with everything that's going on How do you change that line? Ain't no sense in voting. Yeah, and I Prince princes genius is beyond Description but he's wrong about that particular line Well, we don't we don't we don't want to confuse the The forest from the trees because prince is one of the great exemplars of the freedom that I'm talking about And you all know he wouldn't allow him to hip-hop artists to sample his music And so when we went and asked him to do that, he said yes and it was really quite of your blessing and an honor to do that but scrimps a prince also was influenced by another genius named Larry Graham Slide the family stone and Graham station. Well the Grand Central Station decigrams. I looked at Central Station and bow from Jehovah Witness. Oh You see the whole witness got their own sensibilities, Michael Jackson grew up to home with one of the greatest of all black geniuses in the last 50 years ken, gamble gamblin huff grew up, Jehovah Witness And they don't believe in voting was just like Nation of Islam for many years didn't believe in voting into her brother Jesse ran Right. So you got we got certain groups in our community that we push and try to hold accountable we have Conversations and dialogue with them and many of them don't believe in electro politics and I think they're wrong about that I think we have to use all forms of weapon tree Oh Spiritual moral political economic forms of weapon tree, but we also have to be honest and candid and tell ourselves and others the truth You see we can't think that we can't argue. Our politicians are gonna be agents of salvation That's a lie That's a lie. Our politicians cannot be as free Given the structural constraints they can be forces for good, but they cannot be as free So yes, we must vote, but we don't vote for mayor So what my big brother was mayor of San Francisco the last thing you ever want to say. The people of black people is The Messiah I'm gonna bring you salvation. Is that right? My brother? Say I'm a human being in here and I'm swinging And I gotta make decisions And forces are coming at me and interests are coming at me and I need your support and not just on the inside but on the outside Sometimes you agree. Sometimes you disagree but don't pose me as some Messiah hmm No, if you need that go to your church and make sure that Messiah is not your pastor, but Bigger than your pastor So in that way But Prince was simply saying was Given my perspective no one perspective of any of us has a monopoly on truth He said but you notice a lot of times when you do support some of these politicians things don't change too much Hmm. That's what Prince was saying That's real. So we got to say that to the young folk recognize that Voting is just one moment in your arsenal that has to do with how you can be a self-respecting self-determining free human being not just successful But great But great We have always had Anna bitch'll vision of greatness That's why the greatest among us was rarely the richest Nobody knows who the richest Negro in Atlanta was in 1968 but they remember Mark Nobody remembers who the richest Negro in Harlem was in 65 But they remember Malcolm or the richest Negro in Mississippi We shall never forget Fanny are the richest Negro in Los Angeles. Thank God férula Davis greatness and success Don't always overlap and if you are successful and you want to be Then you better have a quality of service connected with your success That you actually helping somebody else Dorothy Irene hi lifting As she climbs that's the best of the deltas and aka an upper-middle class black sisters It's a beautiful tradition and it's best at its worst Idolizing success and enough peacocks. I say that about my alpha brother. Oh, yeah. I'm proud to be an alpha brothers who need some prayer We got half the window boys and mouth and Marlon King and a whole host of others and then it manifests greatness as well as success And the greatness is the key. So with that kind of criterias that one of the the questions is If you who's checking the boxes for you right now in terms of presidential candidates, whoa Good question. Good question, very Good question. Well, the first thing is, you know, you don't want to fetishize Any of the candidates and by fetishize what I mean is ascribe magical powers to them You see the last thing we need to be Would just be spectators who watched the horse race and vote and thinking we made a major contribution to democracy Democracy requires so much more than that To be a serious citizen of great substance And content you got to be involved on a number of different levels. Now, I happen to be a social movement person So I like to keep track of the social movements you see Occupy movement, what were they saying? 1% own 42 percent of the wealth top 3 individuals have wealth equivalent to the bottom 160 million Oh Those crazy folk out there next to Wall Street. Why don't they take a bath and gone? Home and go to school. No, they raising some issues Then here come brother Bernie With intellectual political system raise the same issues four years ago with brother Bernie, of course we hit we hit the country must done over 100 events together and They thought we had lost our mind We're in Seattle just nine years ago took my $15 an hour and they called us communist. I said no I'm a Christian, but you call me $15 an hour, you told my free tuition for public institutions of higher learning Now it's called eliminating the debt now is interesting because the Democratic Party has a number of candidates many of whom Began were Bernie ended four years ago, huh? That's what it means for a politician to be a thermostat rather than a thermometer Most politicians just reflect the climate of opinion especially if they've studied the polls Some politician shaped the climate of opinion like a thermostat that's what brother Bernie's ever do but Bernie didn't do it by himself the Occupy movement black lives matter the same way black lives matter movement on a black president black Attorney General and black homeland security What does that mean? Courage is not a function of skin pigmentation is it? You need some more than just being beautifully black. I love beautifully black people Thomas is beautifully black. I Can't track it at negro I Keep track of it Beautiful back man, if the police is beating him up. I'm on his side against the police but as soon as that's over Keep that Negro accountable 96% he sided with the wealthy and the powerful rather than they everyday people. That's a moral issue spiritual issues not a function of skin pigmentation And we had to say it over and over and over again because people think that somehow this magic of blackness who makes you inherently progressive and courageous well, You say what kind of history book you've been reading? Who? And yet at the same time You have to acknowledge that blackness of ears So thoroughly degraded and hated and treated with this dust and a white supremacist civilization You have to be able to keep track Africans and of black Pigmentation and steal by keeping track of their humanity recognize they can be thugs and gangsters, too Well that they can be Cowardly, they can be complacent they can be complicitous with structures of domination and we in America mean we got to be honest About it. And this is part of our problem these days. You know that Has been often said by the great mo Matheson That American is unique among nations to move from perceived innocence to corruption without a mediating stage of maturity Very powerful statement very powerful steam because America as an empire like the Persian Empire and we're talking about Cyrus with the just the Alex was Talking about earlier rough, but just aliens When Amy the Persian Empire and the time moments with Cyrus Mehta defeat The Roman Empire Got the British Empire austro-hungarian Empire Ottoman Empire America has been an empire It is an empire in decline and decay and if it does not regenerate itself and learn and listen from the best voices It will go under like any other Empire America does God does not look on America and somehow give us a nice little nod And say I'm always for you you my special ones You might chosen people Who know if you don't follow through and do justice? Like any other Empire you lose your empire you lose the best of it hmm and that's a fundamental fact and these days but with the candidate like brother Bernie for it was true for For for sister AOC and others Oh a mariga's gonna go socialist the Pledge pledge of allegiance written by a Democratic Socialist Francis Bellamy the song America the Beautiful written by Katherine Lee Bates Democratic Socialist America's greatest poet Walt Whitman Democratic Socialist America's greatest Allah suffer, John Dewey Democratic Socialist greatest Christian social anthesis Reinhold Niebuhr Democratic Socialist Martin Luther King jr. And he got no language for that brother ends up democratic social Helen Keller deaf mute blind graduated Radcliffe Democratic Socialist we can go on and on when got the jackal under from Oakland yet. Well, we got the hairy bridges yet And we ain't got to agree with anything about them But democratic socialism in its varieties is as American as apple pie But the frame is anytime you talk about socialism you must be talking about the Soviet Union You must be talking about China under Mao and so forth and so on No, that's not just American ignorance and we saw it with Lindsey Graham You all see Lindsey Graham the other day That was the Donald Duck version of Joseph McCarthy That's what that was. It was a cartoonist version of the hysteria Charging against communist like Harry bridges and others. That's what it was Robeson Dubois all of them Angela Davis across the board But it's not gonna work for the younger generation the way it did in the 1950s. You ain't gonna get a black list of Hollywood, you're not gonna get professors who were pushed out of their jobs across the board the way you did in 1950 You're not gonna send Claudia generals to London because she's a member of the Communist Party That's played out That's over, but they're trying to use the same playbook Because if they can just charge anybody with being a communist Somehow you dismissed and I must say any time people call me a communist. I say in the name of Jesus Thank you for the compliment Thank you, because I can tell you my critique of communism when it's tied to domination and repression and regimentation But I can tell you anybody who falls in love with the struggle for poor and working people in their various ways And they're willing to sacrifice they are significantly comrades it to the degree to which they are willing to bring critique to bear on the powers that be And so in that sense, we ought not to be afraid and scared and intimidated And that's crucial because the history of the black movement is the key people's black people Keeper so afraid and scared and intimidated Laughs and when it aint funny scratching when it don't itch wearing the mass always trying to fit in well adjusted to injustice Oh, we just can't wait to fit in and get white approval and white recognition the white pat on the back Oh, is that what makes you feel good? you think that's What Louie Armstrong was blowing in his horn? For white approval he wanted the cash, but he knew the standards had something to do with Buddy Bolden Do you think cerimon Sang the way she did just for white approval You think that Manuel Scot? And Gardner Taylor preached the way they did because they won't approval from white pastors on the vanilla side of town You better get off the crack pipe Get off the crack. Oh We got some internal standards of the highest folk You think grandmama loved you as a black child in order to get White's approval of you? Then you never understood who grandmama really was She loved you because she knew you were precious Irreducible No Comparison to you and lo and behold There's a tradition of that It goes all the way and got nothing to do with putting anybody else down It got everything to do with putting you up in this Society where the systems the structures are geared and designed to put you down Here's some self-respect. Here's some self-determination. Here's some self-love That is a counter voice against what is in place? And that to me is the starting point and that's why it's spiritual as well as moral That's why it's moral as well as political. It's political as well as economic it goes hand in hand But we must never compartmentalize it and think that we got our artists over here in this corner Isn't it nice that they provide such soothing entertainment? No They not staring your soul that they not fortifying you for struggle Then it is superficial Entertainment, but that's not the truth for the great artists to come out of our tradition So so I guess before I move to the next one, I guess all I heard is Bernie Is that the only is that just you know, you're in San Francisco But all I'm saying with you know, we've got to be We've got to be critical supporters of those in the electoral political system you see I'm glad to see since the Harris run She's brilliant. She's poised I Was law I loved how she tried to render brother Biden accountable the other day. It's gonna happen again It's gonna happen again but I'm not convinced that my dear sister Harris has consistently been Progressive and on the side of porn working people in the same way. Bernie has been Now I have a lot of good friends and pressing my case, this is another Trump but I mean Trump being better than Trump is like And and the same is true with sister Elizabeth Warren, I have great great the love and respect for her just like I do But I'm critical everybody when I built in certain directions But nobody uh, but but but you know sis Elizabeth Warren is you know, she's strong there's no there's no doubt, but I must say this though that None of the candidates have been able to come to terms with America's Empire and the foreign policy in the way that I like You see they don't want to really tell the truth about the Israeli occupation They don't want to tell the truth about Bernie's moving in that direction we put a lot of pressure on and it's a difficult thing because we must always Stay in contact with the rich humanity of my precious Jewish brothers and sisters And we tell them this ain't got nothing to do At our best what sir coming to the vicious? ugly tradition of anti-jewish hatred That has said at the center of so many Christian and Muslim civilizations Those are facts that can never be denied But vicious forms of treating our precious Jewish brothers and sisters must never allow us to hide and conceal The way Israeli occupation can lose sight of precious Palestinian brothers and sisters and we have to say over and over again a Palestinian baby has exactly the same value as a Jewish, baby And a Jewish baby has the same value as a Palestinian, baby Neither side has a monopoly of truth with an occupation as an occupation Kashmir Tibet Western sub-sahara. Those are all occupations We have to be honest about that a symmetric relation of power that structure of domination That's the beginning but also in terms of the wars look at the Democrats vote for Trump 750 billion dollar military Budget, but we hear any major critiques of it coming out of a Democratic Party Hmm and this I don't sister Nancy's just right across the way here Pelosi hustle god bless and be with her Jesus keep me knit across that thing But as Speaker of the House You got to be able to keep the vision alongside your practical calculations and if the practical calculations begin to Train Kate some of your vision Then you need serious critique Same is true with the bombing of Libya of Syria with the Trump Trump bomb Syria, what do you get out of so many Democrats? Well, he's finally acting like a president Oh, so that's what presidents do is learn how to bomb huh? Oh That's interesting. Get out of my way with that John Wayne mentality This ain't no Cowboys versus Indians. I Thought we beyond that Martin Luther King jr. Died talking about what? poverty racism Materialism and what else? Militarism War drop bombs dropped in Libya Syria Mali Niger Pakistan Afghanistan Across the board they land in hoods With no money for education no money for health care Can't find the money. Oh, we got a budgetary Austerity, we must promote but we noticed when it comes to finding money for Wars all of a sudden it just the money flows like water those are the kind of things that need to be addressed and unfortunately in most of our presidential Discussions or discussions about President foreign policy hardly surfaces. I don't think there was a serious discussion of it in that last debate Not at all for every dollar spent 60 cent goes to military industrial complex Wow So you got 40 cent to deal with all your other problems Priorities need to be revamped and that's one of the ways in which I think we have to keep track of these various politicians could Be brother P brother Cory, you know, I've got a great love for brother car I've known him since he was a student brother Pete Buddha. Just his father was like a blood brother to me Joseph Buddha's his father just just died. In fact peach mother was telling me she said, you know brother west I'll never forget that you gave by the pizza $5.00 when he was three years old, right? short pants He got so excited, okay Like I do like I do so the Harris and so forth, but I'm just not convinced that Two things. They have the kind of tenacity to be progressive it when it really gets difficult and Two, I don't think that Trump can be beat Unless you can generate such a high level of energy and enthusiasm and vision but this neoliberal milquetoast centrism is Not gonna be strong enough to overcome that right wing crypto-fascist energy on this on the right You got the bit of move people. You got to be able to set them on fire. Not what necessarily rhetoric but with Ideas and vision and one of the things about brother Bernie, even though you see it slightly older brother Bernie you got some folk on fire and they're on fire for the right reasons because he has a longevity of Consistency and integrity and courage. Oh He's saying the same thing. He did four years ago. You want somebody who says something different every four year As hard enough, let's put the pressure on him. He's not highlighting reparations. Let's put the pressure on I'm a reparations man He's moving in that way. I don't have to agree with everybody on everything lift every voice But keep it that as crucial as I think reparations are Reparations is not the litmus test for those who are struggling against racism within the black freedom tradition you got some magnificent warriors against white supremacy who did not for reparations Can't push Thurgood Marshall out just because he wasn't obsessed with reparations He did more than almost anybody did when it comes to wrestling with debt within the legal system. He just art reparations Pie-in-the-sky. Okay. We understand a lot of puttings pie in the sky Doing what you're doing you Know In minutes Miles let him do it though. Did me you wouldn't have his ego? I just as my quintet, I'm gonna pay 18 train you paid three That's what big folk would do nowadays and they would get that from where they get it from their agents and their Spencer Mouse You know, she's not gonna get the same kind of contracts if you just allow train to keep blowing next thing, you know It's gonna be trained court day. Get out of my Train is my brother Taking that loud That's freedom, that's security He steel himself now. He got a problem on the woman question. We know that We kind of like the heart jelly of his day I was wrong as he could be but when he brought playing that music through his horn and it touch your soul Then you don't think immediately, it's Cicely Tyson being attacked You still should think about it? I'm not saying you shouldn't but you don't reduce the genius of his music to the gangsterism of his actions You remember both of them together? Because he was a human being who's wrong and he's an artist who can turn your world upside down If you listen closely the kind of blue and that's the kind of Openness as well as accountability I think that we need and I again thank God for the San Francisco Human Rights Commission and the Commonwealth Club for Allowing the kind of discussions that we're trying to enact here to take place because It is so badly needed in the end. I don't think it's gonna be a question of who has the best plan there's not gonna be a question in the end of Whose head in the polls? It's gonna be who can energize and revitalize the people in a direction that's over against the kind of gangsta leadership and gangsta policies of a brother named Donald Trump with a precious mother named Mary Ann who got here in 1930 But I see as a black man who've been here for nine generations My dear sister. I don't want you to go back. I don't want you to go back Come on in the Empire and try to make it more democratic my slave ancestors built the country Meo slavery Jim Crow Sustained the country while you came in So if anybody has the authority other than indigenous peoples to define, what is an American? You're looking at nine generations of folk who helped build this but you don't hear from us Go back to where you came from Because we don't stay in the gutter. We don't stand the moral and spiritual gutter We know we got gangster elements inside of us, but at our best weari conquer it every day We die every day in order to be better persons more courageous more critical more visionary reaching out to folk all around the country and the world welcome, Miss Mary and her name was Mac loose from Scotland and we say that's all the white brothers and sisters who get here after one generation and want to be Definitive in terms of defining what it is to be America Well Dr. West putting his mic down I guess is the equivalent of the mic drop And unfortunately we No, no, I I do but unfortunately we're we're at time but the spirit don't function by time though No you are you're getting tired I'll try to be ready sure and you should answer some of these questions too given your vision and This mic to you i'ma let you have it you are the Coltrane on this stage tonight So a couple of questions that I think Speak to some of what you've said about on the national level People are asking what do we do nationally, but also locally, what does leadership look like? how do we embrace that but at the same time when we think about black wealth in terms of who is Symbolic of that right and and this idea that it's capitalism and that is what is pushing and driving How do we encourage young people to be more social justice minded right in this age when Beyonce and Rihanna? and jay-z are what we look to in terms of financial wealth and Well-being for black folks. I know it's a wonderful question of we were talking about my dear sister Beyonce before in the way in which Especially with Coachella you see this shift that's taking place and Nina Simone's legacy is beginning really to penetrate in a serious way it's connected to Tradition, but you see in a market-driven culture though. It's not just about individuals. It's really about how your spirit and character is being shaped You see if you really believed that you're gonna feel so much better about yourself because you got a huge mansion you're living large And you got a trophy spouse and so forth. Then you need spiritual transformation Because it just won't last that long I mean everybody fall into it certain moments because it's a human thing But you got to really ask the question What is the source of your enduring joy naturally ephemeral pleasure? See that's a spiritual question you see and all of us fall short you try again fact fail again fail better But it's a spiritual question. And so part of the problem of our young people. Is that their spiritual life Has been so Truncated by the market culture and the families a week. I grew up in the ghetto It was a community Donny Hathaway's sing about the love in it many of them grew up in the hood That's not a sight of a lot of overwhelming love That's survival of the slickest just like Wall Street So that so many of our young people are not loved enough They not care for it enough. I didn't have to worry about that So whoever I am I am Who I am because my momma loved me my daddy loved him my grandmama loved me Rabbi, kook loved me deacon hid and loved me Sarah Wray my Vacation Bible School Teacher loved me. I wasn't worthy of it, but I received it And I'll be true to it until the day I die Large numbers of young folk of all colors and don't receive that So they looking for something? And so when you tell them what shall a person profit who gain the whole world Who they are How you relate to people? What your reward structure really looks like? is it only measurable in materialistic terms or is it measurable and moral and Spiritual and political terms. These are the perennial questions of every generation We have seen a younger generation. Who was the most? bombarded by a spiritually vacuous market driven culture Obsessed with things things things money money money power power power. Yeah that's why I salute so many of them because if I had grown up in Circumstances that they grew up. Oh I mean one I would have been in jail And I still may end up in jail It's true nothing, but the Holy Ghost holding me together I may break loose tonight and do some soul But for our precious young people of all colors, even though well-to-do I see them in Harvard and Princeton all the time Eight hundred boys courts straight A's and wonder whether this do you loved or not? Does mom and dad really affirm me anyway, even though I got all this money why because Money is never the measure of it. I'll tell you a story about one of the great geniuses of all time His name is Stephen Sondheim one of my favorites He's still alive. God bless when you all know Stephen Sondheim West Side Story in his 20s with Linda Bernstein company 1970 Sunday in the Center in the park with George. That's it. Absolutely an impassioned. Oh Now forget I was interviewing him one time Just noticed this pain this ache, he's a gay brother - god bless him And he said I said, what is it about this blues element that shot to which you said Oh, I got a story for you. I was an only child My mother was a piano player In an on Broadway and she was going to the hospital and was told that there's a 30% chance of her to live given this triple by partners, but the triple bypass of her heart, and she Was given a pen and paper. They said you need to write anything as a legacy You might need to write and she why she said to Stephen I have no regrets in life other than giving birth to you I restore when I gave a hug to my dear brother Sondheim And I said, I've been a black man in America for decades and I ain't never experience that level of Alienation Because my mama loved me My daddy loved me I said so even though you grow up on the vanilla side of town Jewish brother Genius to the core gay brother. He's wrestling with forms of catastrophe I know not of Just like I'm wrestling with forms of catastrophe in relation to white supremacy. He knows my love, right but his genius sole Person that he is digging deep inside of his own soul. So when you listen to no more and What's the the play we're? Into the woods, that's right A part one is happy you live happy ever after in Part two with Cinderella gets to Prince and discovers. Is that all you are? All this wishing I've been doing And Sondheim says what wishes come may come true, but never free See that's coming out of his genius and his experience that's our human connection all of our human connections because catastrophe is on its way to all of our houses in one form or another And our young people have to be fortified and equipped. That's why I continue to talk about being fortified Yeah 6th chapter of Ephesians. You got to put on the whole armor. Mm-hmm Even when you put it on you better make sure you with the right army and it has to be an army who's not sunshine soldiers but all seasoned warriors and even if they all seasoned warriors, you still might get So what go down swinging With a smile with style Don't ever allow anybody to Steal your joy That you get out of serving others fighting for others highlight another's but once you have that joy, its irreducible, whoo and Once they know they cake smash and suffocate that joy Didn't you who it is a wonderful human wrestle on my ass oneself to call send it? Oh Sarah, yeah You got to just pass on the joy Sarah, do you know that on the joy Cyndi that's answered Anne Simpson like a puff of smoke She just send it keep dishing it out Now with the flow back to the language of Edward F Adams 1903 the founding of this institution He said we're gonna provide an attempt to seek the truth in what turn it loose into the world James Brown said give it up Turn it loose Send the love send the joy sitting at service send the connection send the Grands Center laughter Send a draw to do sorrow and the sadness to send that on that's who we are We are the recipients of that sending who and the worst thing in America We've ever come up with this notion of being self-made Well the view gave birth to yourselves, please stand up Nobody makes it on their own they Depended on something bigger than them depended on those who came before you work hard you sacrificed your brilliant if you like Sondheim or like Coltrane or LLL Baker Ella Fitzgerald you were genius. That's a small slice then make them better. They just are who they are like Toni Morrison She's a genius and most of us are not. Yeah, that's alright But no Toni Morrison with her mama daddy a church Howard University We can go on and on and on I know that was a long answer there Long I know and I'm I'm getting the nod There's so much more that I definitely wanted to say and ask and I mean from the the Ted Cruz quoting Frederick Douglass, I thought about you Because it made me so for folks who have not read black prophetic fire I would recommend reading it because in it you talk about people who live longer than their fire and When people are quoted Sometimes the context that they quote is after the fire Has burned out and so I thought immediately Of you of that when in that point and then I would just say as we end and you'd think about joy The idea of hope comes to me and this again from king who you refer to often They had no alternative except to accept the fact of slavery But they clunk tenaciously to the hope of freedom in a seemingly hopeless situation they fashioned within their souls a creative optimism that strengthened them and so with that I say thank you for strengthening us and providing us with optimism So So I Have to I have to say this part here odd. Thanks to dr Cornel West professor of the practice of public philosophy at Harvard University professor emeritus at Princeton University and author of the book race matters we also thank our audience here and on radio television and the internet the San Francisco Human Rights Commission has been pleased to provide assistance with this program I'm Cheryl Davis and now this meeting of the Commonwealth Club the place where you're in the know is adjourned
