Cornel West on Bernie Sanders, Michael Eric Dyson, Trans Rights, and B.B. King

hi today on the Laura Flanders show dr. Cornel West considers everything from black lives matter to the death of blues master BB King welcome to our program what does it mean to be a public intellectual in today's modern world our next guest has received both the plaudits and the attacks that come with the job he's been an outspoken supporter of many causes others won't touch and an equally outspoken critic of President Barack Obama he was the civil rights Elda most warmly embraced by people activists on the ground in Ferguson in Baltimore he's less popular on MSNBC Cornel West has written or edited dozens of books including classics like race matters and democracy matters his most recent is black prophetic fire written in conversation with Krista Bhushan Dorf he's collaborated with musicians from Prince to Jill Scott K rs1 and appeared in 25 films including the entire Matrix trilogy all of that is nothing like having you here in the flesh Cornell great to have you guys I mean listen I want to salute you my dear sister Laura what a force for good you are I take it to the heart so what a trajectory when I went back just to remind myself as some of the facts of your life born in Tulsa went to Harvard first african-american to get a PhD from Princeton in 1982 today at the Union Theological Seminary it's extraordinary span how do you kind of trace the course of your life and what does it say about it well first I think I've lived a blessed life I think the highest honor I've ever had to be the second son of Irene and Clifton and to be the brother of Clifton Cynthia and Sheryl and the father's a tune in Clifton I was fundamentally shaped black family black community Shiloh Baptist Church black church Black Panther Party right next door never a member but very much involved in the activities from freedom feeding the children to visiting the prisons and so forth so that was really the two pillars family Camilla in one hand with the music and then the church on the other so by the time I went to Harvard Yale and Princeton they were wonderful supplements to help me provide certain kind of analytical tools and broaden my vision and so on but it's fundamentally about just trying to tell the truth as it relates to the plight of poor and working people here and around the world but that combination of the the radicalism of a Malcolm X or the Black Panthers and we've spoken about your admiration for the theologian James cone that combination how'd you characterize it is it Liberation Theology something different I think it's just a human thing it's just trying to love your neighbor and trying to be honest about structures of domination so that you try to ensure that you touch people's lives such that they could be as free as they can in short time that you're here and I learned that very much in family in church it's just a once I got exposed to you know Marxist analysis of capitalism feminist analysis of patriarchy anti homophobic analysis of losing Saturday humanity gay brothers and lesbian sisters and trans and cisco and most importantly for me coming to terms of legacy of white supremacy I mean empires whaling with pea realism and what have you but really wrestling with the legacy of white supremacy and trying to ensure that you live a live from self-respect and some self-determination do you remember when all those pieces kind of fell into place I remember for me realizing Oh white supremacist oppositing isn't is a active force right not just kind of backdrop did you remember that moment it was probably when I was uh about nine years old I refused salute the flag because my uncle had been lynched and they wrapped his body in the US flag that hung from the tree all of a sudden said it was not just evil in the world but this is touching home this is a personal and intimate thing and I had a name for the races now Malcolm said white supremacy that cuts deeper yeah that's exactly what it is but it's just one evil among others you know imperialism and anti-jewish hatred anti-muslim hatred anti yeah Arab hatred anti white hatred they're all forms of evil is just a wrestling with evil in the world and what you go and do about it my evil and structures Oh Lord yes and all white supremacy the structure as well as a prejudice it works on individual level and it works on the structural institutional level you are absolutely have you been as excited as I have to see movements like the black lives matter movement Baltimore and Ferguson really taking that structural analysis and bringing it to the streets you went to Ferguson along with a lot of elders and talking to people there we've had a lot of the both of the Ferguson activists on the program from black lives matter and others they've said not all the elders were as welcome as you were but you were brother west professor Cornell you were embraced well what did you do to Fresno I did you got to go in just like a jazz musician trying to learn something from the younger generation you know you have a certain genuine humility and certain willingness to learn and listen understand alongside now whatever advice or insight they think I could bring I try to give it but to stand alongside you know these old messianic models with leadership usually deeply patriarch office H and I see the head Negro in charge the Pied Piper everybody following day over all with patriarchal to the core to the core now Ella Baker her legacy is a democratic leadership collective leadership grassroot indigenous leadership so what does that mean in concrete terms you're there you're on the streets the cameras are rolling you're the person that can get a lot of attention what are you do to implement to be another Baker type of a an elder rather than when it comes to corporate media and unlikes thank God the truth telling the goes on on your chin you're on your TV show that I say I refuse to do interviews unless I have a young person alongside me come on sister Ashley come on brother Tori brother TIFF so that in that sense then the cameras hit and ask me a question I just record she let them respond why because the the world needs to hear their voices the black drip anthem has lift every voice we need to hear the voices of young people because the black freedom movement is not going alive if is not transmitted McQuaid through the younger generation they pick it up same courage same vision same willingness to suffer same goodness live and die that's the only way that tradition stays alive you had a conversation a few years ago at the New York Public Library with jay-z the rapper and one of the things that came out of that that stuck with me was your reflection or maybe it was his on singing in harmony whispers you name it Hey versus the rapping tradition of being the frontman one of you suggested that it creates some different models for leadership can you explain well I just think that you got the old guards who run the radio video live performance industries they don't want groups like dramatics Adele filings of whispers Jones girls emotions the Marvelettes or the temptations they want single ego often egoistic males out there with just a microphone and so what happens is you no longer have the voices raised together listening to each other harmonizing and making a collective performance as it relates to the collective audience so there's a weak consciousness see we live in hedonistic narcissistic rapaciously individualistic times and you see it in the music where it's all now more and more about the money as opposed to the music in the music about soul-stirring it was not just about body stimulation nothing wrong with stimulating your body James Brown will do that but James will move your souls old everything so donny hathaway so Nina Simone and the others and that's the traditional young folk need to be part of now on the other hand the younger generation they got Kim Burrell they got Jill Scott they've got in it Anthony Hamilton and Raheem DeVaughn and some others who move your soul but they pushed to the margins they pushed to the margin did you and Harry Belafonte have words with Josie oh we did we did we did we that's wonderful word Lupe Fiasco was there as well as you know but I mean jay-z is a lyrical genius it is no there's no doubt about it but the question is that we geniuses before black culture the question is what you're gonna do it yeah who you going to serve Ferguson Baltimore New York Cleveland already in the Bay Area certainly Florida go back to Trayvon Martin what is happening in this country visa vie policing are we just seeing things we didn't see before or is there really some new level of brutality that's coming out in the streets well one this marvelous new militancy among the younger generation is multiracial it's multicultural led primarily by young black folk primarily black women and primarily by black queer women new phenomena in that sense but we know every 28 hours has been a like a brown person shot over the last ten years with not one policeman rendered accountable in the formal going to jail black president black Attorney General black homeland security cabinet member all those black faces in high places not translating into justice the rule of law is still deeply racist but of course we know how classes they did look at Wall Street all the crimes on Wall Street market manipulation insider trading not one wall to the executive of high order going to jail they still dominate the government up to this day so the connection between that rule of law that is deeply racist deeply tilted toward Wall Street and the well-to-do and and then also suspended when it comes to Imperial policies the drones dropping bombs on innocent people is a good thing to see the president apologizing for the American life in the Italian life when it comes to thousands of lives in Pakistan and Afghanistan and Somalia and Yemen and Libya two hundred and thirty-some children and it's and children did not I'm mumbling a word from mr. president you see you see that that kind thing burns me up well it does burn you up and it's got you into certain amount of trouble in the black community with your former mentee Michael Eric time oh we got pray for that Negro yeah Dyson dedicated ten thousand words in the New Republic recently to taking your basically your record apart he tried to school you in how to criticize Obama in that piece and he talked your former student about it's better to say you support the guy he's up against a lot he's failing or he has failed on some occasions than what you do to which he says that you said that's how we're different what's wrong with his approach well I mean he can have the approach he wants you know again I wanted by lifting voice but the question is whether you're going to be honest and candid about it you see when I hear talk about Wall Street government Main Street left out to drive and I hear talk about a drone presidency and I see the innocent life loss when I see massive surveillance at brother Snowden and insisted Manning and others have disclosed righteous indignation flows ecological catastrophy going to corporate greed then we got a new Jim Crow he got decrepit schools and so forth then if he says no we need polite language in order to support the president and maybe have a criticism every now and then I said no we do different kind of black men I'm full of righteous indignation to see these structural and justices and I think what we have and brother Dyson of course he's not just to form a student I've known for over thirty years but he was my very close brother yeah there's no doubt about it so when I read as much as I could read it was hard to get through the whole thing it was painful because I could see him in such pain and anguish because we were so close you know what I mean I said oh brother this looks like a narcissistic self projection you see in yourself when you're looking at me in terms of you got me wrong I'm trying to tell the truth and willing to pay a price you were told you were telling the truth for a while but I'm willing to pay the price you change you become one of the president's men and now you get rationalization for your deference to the status quo now if you want to be the you know definitely the status quo that's a choice people make there's black conservatives the black liberals the black niro liberals he wants to be a black left she can't be a leftist and act like a neoliberal you can't do it it's something called the truth that's bigger than all of us so it's not about ego that you didn't get the tickets to the inauguration you were looking for no on me anytime you do sixty-five events for somebody within eleven months you think you deserve a ticket for your mother I mean that's just decent for me so in that sense and not only that but that has nothing to do with drone presidency Wall Street presidency these are the issues and see I was reading my dear brothers piece as we plan to go to Ferguson Baltimore and I'm thinking this is a distraction you got all these deaths out head is suffering out here the last thing we need is some narcissistic discussion of our two Negro intellectual let's move absolutely because he tried to serve the people you're supporting Bernie Sanders can well I love brothers Bernie he tells the truth about Wall Street it really does I resonate deeply with I'm not a Hillary Clinton fan at all so he uses his power they hand it over to her I'll be deeply deeply upset but I also think in terms of foreign policy you see that it's on the one hand we've got escalating anti-jewish hatred around the world we've got to fight anti-jewish hatred under all conditions on the other hand we have a vicious Israeli occupation that needs to be highlighted because occupations are wrong and I don't hear my dear brother Bernie hitting that and I'm not going to sell my precious Palestinian brother sisters down the river only because of US politics the truth cuts over against whatever the political arrangement is so we got to be able to somehow keep track of anti-jewish hatred which is evil and occupations of whatever sort in this cancer center vicious Israeli occupation that's evil as well and I think Bernie might pull back on some of those issues where do you see trans discrimination and trans equality in your constellation of Justice I think it's a matter of just trying to be consistent you know what the great Jane Austen called constancy can you be consistent from one context to the next so that you have some sense of integrity so for example my gay brothers lesbian sisters the transit system an ally I'm a freedom fighter concerned about the freedom of human beings they're human beings in that context I'm with them same as two of my sisters be so be patriarchy or working people visa be capitalist bosses that are exploited to in the wonderful ways in which Richard Wolffe yeah it has talked about this he's a towering public intellectual on with Chomsky and David Bromwich and that's the difference between sympathy and empathy being in solidarity versus self at that fine solutely and what you do you just you're there you show up you see you there you show up and you don't ask for their permission but you do ask for their consultation so that you're able to be a more effective freedom fighter in their context but you'd certain moral consistency myself as a Christian it's really a matter of spirituality too because you see for me see I'm a cross bare before I'm a flag waver and the cross is about unarmed truth and unconditional love and the condition of truth is always to allow suffering to speak no matter who what he is and the love of course is about trying to make that contact that contact with people that the psychic a substantial level as well as justice being what love looks like in public so it's a matter of trying to bear witness in the public way so in that sense that's what I love about the best of Marxism internationalist across the board a baby in Ethiopia same status as a baby in Tel Aviv same stat as a baby in the West Bank same status as a baby in Newtown Connecticut or a black baby in Harlem and that sounds so simplistic but when you're following nationalism it can get you in trouble nationalism was the most powerful ideology in the modern world in some sense into what people want to live and die for college go without celebrating and looking at the incredible legacy of blues man BBK my god what a giant what a giant BB exemplified what the Blues is all about person personal narrative of catastrophe expressed lyrically and when he said nobody loves me but my mama she might be jiving to a catastrophe but what does he do in the face of catastrophe style so what a smile compassion courage and see that's the history of a people because I come from a blues people what are we doing the face of slavery Jim Crow Jane crow smile style love justice hate it teach the world something about love terrorize teacher world something about freedom that's Sojourner Truth the Malcolm X the Martin King the dining hathaway to read the Franklin and it's a great tradition and be be exemplified it at the highest highest level I carry around with me this cart because a BB and I used to talk about all the time in the trailer you see this car did dr. West jazz is a big brother of the Blues if a guy's playing Blues like we play with he's in high school and he started playing jazz it's like going on school of higher learning because he always are you see you a jazz man in the world of the mind I said yeah that's me brother I spotted that hey I'm a blues man into a world of ideas well that's to me is the highest title you can have much deeper than public intellectual because when you're a jazz woman or blues man you choosing to be a certain kind of human being in the face of catastrophe you still smile and style and ready to fight smile style love justice fight going out west thanks so much for coming in thank you so much what a blessing to be in conversation which might get more information about Professor West's work at our website this week we're in Baltimore what are the systemic issues that results in a young man Bammer we revisited a classic interview with new Jim Crow north of Michelle Alexander poor people of all colors are being harmed severely by our political and economic policies but a race wedge is being used to keep them divided and distracted just going through the whole justice system is violence if you if you're a single mother and you're a sex worker and you get arrested who's going to take care of your kids if you decide to leave sex work for any other reason then you have a charge under on your records forever and so trying to get a job trying to get to school trying to get a degree it's pretty hard

Channel: The Laura Flanders Show

Views: 250,615

Rating: 4.8748207 out of 5

Keywords: Laura Flanders, GRITtv, independent media, radical politics, capitalism, Cornel West (Author), Politics (TV Genre), Barack Obama, Michael Eric Dyson, Michael Dyson, Black Lives Matter, Ferguson, Baltimore, Cornel West, B.B. King, Palestine, Bernie Sanders, LGBT, Black Prophetic Fire, Christa Buschendorf

Id: nHsHhj329T4

Length: 20min 17sec (1217 seconds)

Published: Tue Jun 09 2015

Reddit Comments

[u/jmiller61193]

Bernie's main concern is domestic, and that is a good thing.

As far as Israel is concerned, he has his views and that's that. It is a touchy situation, but not terribly important to our country overall.

On the Iraq war, he was right that it was a mistake. Most people agree there. On ISIS he says that countries like Turkey, Jordan, Saudi Arabia etc need to lead the ground effort, not the US. Saudi Arabia has the third biggest defense budget in the world now, and they hate ISIS, why aren't they doing anything?

US troops would both be costly for us and also be the perfect propaganda for ISIS (white, christian, western occupation)

His foreign policy does not seem weak to me. Compared to Republicans like Graham saying they will immediately put ground troops back in Iraq..

[u/rushmid]

Any sources on Bernie's stance on the Gaza occupation?

[u/bernieismypresident]

I like Bernie, but Cornell West is right that Bernie's weakness is foreign policy. Bernie Sanders always emphasizes that he was against the invasion to Iraq, but he tells nothing about the fact that he supported the invasion to Afghanistan. I think he knows that. Foreign policy is one of his very few weaknesses.