Left of Black with Cornel West

this is Duke University the term Ubuntu cut the Alien and Sedition accident is making inferential discoveries importance of an archive the John Hope Franklin Center in 2009 Antwon medley founded the Cornel West Academy for excellence in Raleigh North Carolina in 2011 the Cornel West Academy for excellence is hosting a conference dealing with the images of african-american men during the Obama era special guests Cornel West and it's Cornel West who will join us in this the 35th and season finale episode of left of black I'm Mark Anthony Neal how you doing today brother well by these time I come to North Carolina's John Coltrane country I'm already fired up man sit here to see these precious and priceless young people we tell you explicitly we love you that we're gonna keep track of you and we want you to to stand tall and a great tradition and I want to thank brother Antoine medley give me my hand all of those who were there give him a hand he's got that love in and he's got that service in him and he's bequeathing it to the younger generation and song we love you brother those who work with you your family and we want to acknowledge his parents just beloved mother and his father give it get both in my hand no hands one without them and of course his magnificent wife this magnificent white who he paid tribute to earlier in the luncheon but we want these jump rope to know this is all about the love you see loving wisdom and loving thy neighbor and loving thyself and loving justice trying to leave the world just a little better than you found it that's a great tradition and I do want to say a quick word about Cahill grand scheme we want them to know that this music is not all the mental a decorative it's constitutive of who we are so we appreciate your music and keeping alive the traditions we love that we love that brother happiness singing and they play in real open computers machine we plan the real instrument I was telling my dear brother my dear brother lyrical genius Bootsy Collins just last week the funk capital of the world and he and I wrote two songs together this magnificent but to be in the studio this is in Cincinnati Ohio where brother boots eats from his brother catfish just died Garrett Strider used wet diapers for the Funkadelics it just died so we had George Clinton in there as well got Bobby Womack on man you got Chuck D Snoop Dogg I saw the brother wearing Chuck D fight the power truck dudes on the first record what's new as well as ice cube you got afro-cuban music but what it is is it's keeping alive what it means to fall in love with justice and courage not just money fame and property and pleasure and that's the tradition that we trying to keep alive when I see the precious parents of the young people give the parents a hand too who are here give the parents a hand too yes indeed we salute you we salute you salute you precious young folk very much so I know that was a long answer to your question but I'm gonna cut my answers a little shorter but but I just wanted to start on that note it's true North Carolina is special and you all know you got the greatest Christian preacher the greatest artistic genius of the pulpit I'm talking about Reverend God in the Taylor living in Raleigh North Carolina now give him a hand even though he's not big brother Reggie hi he works with him I don't know brother brother Reggie made it or not brother Reggie hi who works with him brother Tavis Smiley and I come to Raleigh North Carolina every year every July for two and a half days to sit at the feet of the great garnet tailor who was the mentor for Martin Luther King jr. and so many others so North Carolina means means much to me means so much to me here my mother says hello as well before the Academy absolutely well let's stay with North Carolina for a second you know you know when you talk about folks like Gardiner Taylor and John Coltrane and you know Thelonious Monk or Carolina you know folks someone reference Shore University you know a few minutes ago and of course Ella Baker and created Snickers right here in North Carolina in Raleigh 1960 and so it's a great history what a great tradition and one of the you know some of the the young men here you know who are named it you know it's like when you do what Professor West does right and you get these endowed chairs and they're named after various people year the class of 1943 Princeton professor and the way that these young men had named as scholars write it its reproduces that notion so looking at the young man who was a John Hope Franklin yeah you know scholar here at the Cornel West Academy for excellence and you know I was fortunate enough as I know he probably had many opportunities also to spend some time you know with the legendary his story you know who was still on the path right you know until he gave us his last breath you know who are some of the people you know that as you were coming up you know that inspired you to do what you do yeah I remember the first time I met you and this goes back about 18 years hmm and you probably don't remember you came to speak at a small little school State University of New York at Fredonia I hadn't even started a ph.d program that was about this I was about to start in the fall and I picked you up Buffalo Airport no integra and we listen to some Rachelle Ferrell Rachelle Ferrell oh she's underappreciated I'm telling ya and I remember talking to you and you talked about what it meant to live the life of the mind you know so who those folks that inspired you you know to live a life of the mind and talk a little bit about what that means you know for these young folks for folks in the audience did this idea of living a life of the mind mmm Dada not appreciate that question I mean for me I am Who I am because somebody loved me but somebody cared for me so it really begins with Irene and Clifton West I my momma's childhood my daddy's kid always will be the highest honor our ever have is being the second son of Irene and Clifton and so begins with that love early on and then it's connected to Shiloh Baptist Church because I did grow up as a gangsta but I wanted to win transformation I was washed in the blood now I still have that real I still got gangsta proclivities but the whole that goes is holding me together I had a raw rage because I didn't like the world of which I found myself was too much suffering in the world when I was very very young I saw the sister Linda who I like very much didn't have lunch and starving had extra food and so I was bit course if it made sure that star Vale shared his food with Linda every day at the Robin hood-like Sensibility I was wrong to be coercive but I did want to make sure that everybody had some food so I had to change that raw agent to a moral indignation so I'm on fire for justice not revenge I'm a militant for tenderness and I'm an extremist of love but what that does is it makes it cuts against the grain makes you go against the grain as it were and once I did go to college I had been shaped by the Black Panther Party I heard somebody say Bobby Seale yes i dro the introduction yes there's my brother yes indeed indeed stand up brother give this brother Bobby Seale and Huey Newton another's meant much to me I couldn't join the party because I'm a Jesus loving free black men and they were secular and agnostic so we disagreed on the god question but I worked in the breakfast program every morning because I have a love affair would try to have a love affair with people but I begin with the 25th chapter Matthew the least of these I begin in the prisons I begin with the poor brother so she's catching hail I begin with folk on the margins and then it spills over it gets the rich folk he just doesn't start damn he's a Wall Street's not a priority for me Main Street is I don't hate folk on Wall Street but I don't start there but that's what it is for me to be a Christian now what that meant was that by the time I got to Harvard the first thing I wanted to do was go directly to the breakfast program so I ran that for three years when I was there in Boston and the prison program if we ran every Sunday after church I was superintendent of Mount Pleasant Baptist Church so we had a lot of interesting material for sunday-school we read the boys we read Toni Morrison we read James Baldwin somebody was Richard Wright who was Richard Wright yes send up get that brother Han Richard Wright we read Richard Wright made his son right in the church you see and we played music I played Curtis Mayfield as beginning every class so they knew they'd come into my Sunday School class they go get some Curtis our Gil scott-heron on the last poet I'm Nina Simone Mississippi he won't say to the church but it's a way of staying in contact with the best of not just black tradition this is a profoundly modern tradition which is so much of the best of the human spirit and that's very important this is crucial for the young to understand it the you are being actually grounded in shaped by a traditional John Coltrane you talk about John Coltrane you're not just talking about a Negro genius born in Hamlin North Carolina you talk about one of the heights of the human spirit in the modern world monk the same way and part of the challenge is that these days you got the prison industrial complex distances from the tradition you got the entertainment corporate media within weapons of mass distraction keeping you from the tradition the military-industrial complex Wall Street financial complex how are our precious young people going to gain access to the rich tradition the only way you're doing it you got to fight for great labor service sacrifice but destroy but the fact is that's the only way we got access to it yeah only way we got access now of course those days our families were strong they're not churches was stronger and our community somebody made that point earlier in this wonderful panel that we magnificent panel you all did a wonderful job but there somebody made that point about our communities were stronger but things have changed exact change but the fundamental question is even as pharmacist lawyer intellectual poet hip-hop artist whatever the question is what kind of care do you really have for others what's the quality of your service to others what is the depth of your love to others that's what greatness is so you never confuse success and greatness and part of the problem in the last 40 years we've told our young people to be successful money fame property any in them well adjusted to injustice and the last thing we need are highly successful folk cold-hearted mean-spirited coarse and conscious but highly successful we need greatness use your success for something bigger than you that's what greatness is whatever gifts that you do make music share it and give it but I had great times at Harvard and Princeton too of course I was blessed spending time at Union Theological Seminary for nine years with changes oh yeah James Washington Jim for the gym for his brother has a church here named David for y'all know that brother Reverend David Ford once named his church Christian faith he's my dear brother McCain for is one of the great preachers of contemporary Christian but his brother at the church I think Gardner Taylor the member of his church action as well that's North Carolina Ghanem Leon mosa he's good Jane fourth grew up in North Carolina swam James Brown was your roommate not James Bond oh yeah the funk genius no not him he's my soul mate but not my room but James Brown you all know on the television sportscaster yeah yeah you're all know James Brown he's magnificent maybe but he was an all-american basketball play professional basketball too but he's from China City Washington DC and I fell in love with his sister actually so it was always a little delicate in the you know delicate in the dome room you know Cicely she just magnificent sister but James and I won't do it again because his book just came out I recommend you all book and his national spokesperson for AARP these days I think also yeah we were roommates we had a wonderful time and the best of Monroe was one of the first black hitters in Newsweek that same room yeah so brother Wes you are an MSNBC a few weeks ago and you had a disagreement with your brother over that shop a shark yeah and you know a lot of people were I want to say surprised even shocked by the energy out of that conversation but you know we know that the boys and Garvey went at it hard I mean brutal right time with you know we know in their own different kinds of ways that you know King and Malcolm X went at it hard you know Jesse and Farrakhan had their debates the difference is is that you know Garvey and the boys could have their debate and relative privacy black folks reading newspapers right it wasn't gonna be broadcast 250 million people on a cable news channel yeah but to get to that debate how important has it been right because you know we showed the world that we could elect a black president but the second part of the question is how do we help a black president to govern and and you can't help the brother govern if you don't hold him accountable right and he has to know that he has to be accountable to something right so talk about what it's been for you waging you know this let's call it critical warfare right you know how do we hold the first black president accountable the same way that we would have held any other the 43 men who came before him accountable for a responsibility to not black folks but Americans yeah absolutely absolutely well appreciate the question it's a it's a complicated one because there's a number of factors to keep in mind see I begin with the notion that when you really love people and in this case really love black people and it's to love black people in a white supremacist civilization is a subversive act it's a cutting radically against the grain and then when you love black poor people because the part of our problem these days is that we've got black middle-class leadership that doesn't focus as much as it all on poor black brothers and sisters because everybody knows for example their white brothers sisters were going to jail in the same level the black bugs was going to jail the president of a complex would be a national security issue right right but it's also true that if black middle-class brothers and sisters were going to jail at the same levels of black poor mothers this is going jail we'd have a slightly different kind of black leadership so we got a class by a setting into and so we've got to say no we come from a tradition where precious Jamal and precious latisha have the same status as our jacket dear brothers and sisters right I'm really clan mother sister and see I experienced class mobility I started off proletarian middle-class but as a Christian I cut through it because your mama has exactly the same value for me as where I go by what people said where you you live in a world no no no your worlds one warped you see because everybody got same bad that's that's a Christian so the white house becomes a form of public housing and the project is the form of public housing and I want quality in public housing across the board White House project and whatever now to look at it in that way means that you're going to generate a lot of attacks and assault because it's not the normal way of looking at things in our society in the media for example when's the last time you had a serious examination and the prison industrial complex in the campaign who even mentioned the fact that one out of three of our precious black brothers on probation on parole or in prison no mention of and you know and in our prison had an opportunity right when your friend and colleague you know brother gay brother had a real great opportunity to to educate the nation about this reality right I mean that was the thing I felt about Jeremiah Wright and Jeremiah Wright himself right one of the greatest preachers that this this country has produced right and and understood the conversation the connection between the gospel and the social gospel right we have to have a meaningful relationship with the world that we're in and so that when folks start coming after Jeremiah Wright for doing what he's been doing for 25 years effectively right what was the responsibility of then-candidate Barack Obama right to use that you know that bully pulpit to educate the larger nation right about the traditions that produce a Jeremiah right right which is no different than the traditions we see every Saturday in a barber shop right when men and women and young boys young girls amass in these spaces to have critical conversations about the things that matter to us when Jeremiah Wright said god damn America when America kills innocent people doesn't that wrong with that what's the dispute right anybody killed innocent people it's going to paring some kind of critique and damnation LeMond Luther King jr. wrote down the title of his sermon before he was shot down like a dog in Memphis April 4th 1968 on that Lorraine Motel balcony the title of his sermon was America made go to him he didn't say ought to go to hell and might it may go to hell why because if you don't treat your poor people right if you don't treat your working people right if you don't cheat red people right you don't treat black people right you don't treat brown people right sooner or later chickens come home to roost you're gonna reap what yourself what's in the wash gonna come out in the rinse you can think you can get away with it for a while but sooner or later truth crushed to earth shall rise again that's what Martin was talking about you see so that in that sense we gotta tell our young folk come on Luther King jr. Kevin the love in what he was saying but when you love folk you hate the fact they've been treated unfairly how many young four where he lovely mama's written written there you go now somebody treat your mama unfairly what happens did you get upset you get deeply upset you want to do something about it do you keep the love in it yes keep loving it for your mama you see but you hate to end justice you're not hating the person you hate the injustice and that's the tradition of the Martin King was talking that's the tradition of Jeremiah Wright represent that is best but it's difficult when you're a politician because if you're concerned with the election you've got to speak to a broader array of people and it's speaking to a broader array of people it's hard to speak that kind of truth if you want the white moderate vote it's hard to speak that kind of truth if you want the white independent vote this is why I say it gets complicated I mean I support a brocco bomb under 65 events for that fella from Iowa to Ohio because I wanted to make sure that we brought to an end this age of Reaganism with this greed running amok and this indifference to poor people you know we spent 325 billion dollars on the prison industrial complex in the last 25 years but we told we don't have the money for education who had the money for jobs with a living wage would have the money for housing you say wait a minute what no no one King talked about what warped priorities spent a hundred fifty billion dollars every month well this year in Afghanistan but we see we didn't have the money it's been a trillion dollars in Iraq you said he didn't have the money but when it come to poor people all of a sudden budgetary deficit time to cut back Wall Street goes under seven hundred billion dollars welfare but you just cut off welfare for the poor Oh welfare for the rich that's different they're too big to fail also everyday people too little to rescue that need to be pointed out with love and I keep coming back to the love issue because when I dialogue with brothers Sharpton and I saw sister Marjorie here early and brother Edward Roberts and does such a magnificent job here in North Carolina too especially with Cornel West there in the newspaper we were talking about this that I was the kind of the exploratory committee would when brother Al Sharpton ran for president now I knew he wasn't going win the mother had a chance of a snowball in hell to win yeah but you have to redefine winning sometimes you win by getting the word out or as monk used to say sometimes wrong is right right you hit that minor key anybody else no that's not right month we listen to it create your own way so we decided he was gonna run in order to raise the issue before people raise issue of working people and raise the issue of black people he ran in part connected to a black agenda my black agenda we don't mean just special interests of black people the black freedom struggle has been fundamentally about justice and fairness for all that's what it is greater doesn't it say I just want freedom for black but you want freedom for everybody but he was gonna begin on the chocolate side of town and spill over to vanilla and spill over to yellow and so forth I had to be wails in the face of American terrorism called Jim Crow did she want to terrorize other folk no did she want just black people to be freed no she wanted right for everybody she wanted Liberty for everybody the black freedom movement has always been about justice for everybody fairness for everybody that's something we need to keep in mind cuz a lot of people think all the black agenda it's just about those folk over here in the black section of town no you don't understand black history that's Fox News see that's not news they got their distorted conceptions for lies and so forth but it's also seeing in see an end until the full truth MSNBC that Ella for truth we understand contact with a tradition that authorizes our reality so that we don't get duped by these little narrow discourses that you get on television all the time they're so truncated it's so parochial is so provincial they don't allow the variety of voices that would allow us to get at these deeper issues as it relates to poor people and working people and that's what the part when I was wrestling Shepherd because I was a total sharp I said brother I'm very afraid that you could be used by the white house to hide and conceal some of the suffering of poor people by the West what you mean I said well I know Tim Geithner who was a treasure coming right out of Wall Street it's talking to brother Barack every day and I know you coming in every two weeks so you don't have the same kind of input you man Lawrence Summers and Larry Summers absolutely is going now but he was he was the major I mean Larry Summers deregulated derivatives coming right out of the Wall Street oligarchy Tim Geithner right out of Wall Street oligarchy I said wait a minute got monster king jr's bust in the Oval Office so a Monkey King duty is listening in your conversation about Wall Street Oh Lagarde get bailing out these Wall Street all the guards he just got tears in his eye he said I died for sanitation workers hmm a time for poor folk I tried to organize poor people where is the discussion about poverty where is it and I told brother how I said dear brother Barack Obama gave a State of the Union just what in January first time president did not refer to poor people or poverty at 48 years in the history of a state of union something went wrong I said you got stopping frist in New York City 2/3 of all young black brothers between 16 and 25 have been stopped and frisked by the police they arrested 2.8 percent of those who will stop the fridge and seven members of the cabinet because stopping frist is not just a black issue that's the arbitrary use of power in the name of the law it's immoral and it all it does is try to intimidate the young black brother tries to somehow make them afraid they fearful of confinement fearful of captivity more and more New York young black folk 11 New York to go into Connecticut New Jersey because of that coming down south so I'm coming down south if they got money to buy the tickets forty percent of young black brothers say they don't have one penny and reporting on their income how are they surviving you better they going underground underground the economy you see and there's no serious focus on this the focus is on middle class middle class middle classes where is the talk about poor people where is the talk about working people in many people in the middle class discover that they really just working people with a buzu identity because when they lose a job they're part of the new pool one and that downward mobility is taking place more and more and more so they used to talk bad demonize the poor now to discover they've broken the Ten Commandments financially so there's a need for critical voices now it's true that my love Barack Obama is as profound as it is for these young brothers right here but just like these young brothers I want to protect them I respect them and I correct them Barack Obama needs to be respected protected and correct all three at the same time and that's true of each one of us because I'm a Craig well so too I definitely need to be corrected we come from a generation right as yeah but I didn't want to say you were hold well we come from generations and which you know part of the mantra was that we didn't air dirty laundry right so when there were difficult discussions in the house right they stayed in the house right we in in quiet and quite there was no forum and mainstream culture for us to air those gripes right now we have social media now we have these 24 hour cable networks they're all looking for product right so two black men want to get on television and argue all these places are more than willing you know to provide a space and put a microphone and folks you know face in that context but when we talk about some of the substantive issues right particularly around his first black first I mean there are folks who are quite fearful of being critical of Barack Obama because of that status right so on the one hand right your critique or critique from Tavis Smiley or the cat said you know you know black agenda report right who've been hitting him hard you know from from a left critique early right right from a left critique did that its most folks in America have no sense even exist right and when you have everyday folks who are listening to these discussions right I mean they're quite fearful of this kind of critique of Barack Obama so how do we do the work of holding our president accountable all right and as you mentioned not just for issues that affect our communities but a range of issues for folks who are not being represented but at the same time affirm his value in that position right and and I think we live now in a culture in which any critique is seen as hate right that and and and something that's derived out of jealousy right you know even in Europe contact when you hear in folks did like well he just upset because he didn't get an invitation to the White House right as if the issues you're raising right right so how do we and you know because we're talking about right an advanced democracy now right highly functioning democracy and in that context how do everyday folks understand what their role is in holding those folks who govern us accountable right particularly when we can't write checks the way to cope brothers can the way yeah yeah well that's why I keep coming back not just to the love keeping the love in it but being clear about your principles I mean can you imagine having a black mayor who doesn't speak directly to the situation of poor folk in the city based on principles you have to gauge in a critique if you're concerned about porn working people in the city same is true with your state and of course we all have been highly critical and rightly so our brother Clarence Thomas how come their brother sides with the strong against the weak besides with the powerful against a relatively powerless that's how he rolls he's a deeply black conservative brother and to be conservative is decide with the privileges at the top with hierarchy rather than keeping track of the least of these on the bottom and accountability of those at the top fool about that's the difference between a conservative and a progressive that's what it is it could be religion debate patriarchy the brothers whose side with male privilege against the sisters are conservative on patriarchal issues it is clear nobody can't preach in the pulpit why because God only called me in what are you a man oh I see hmm what's in the Bible what a lot of things in the Bible I notice a woman's post stayed quiet in the church a lot of black churches get around that one slaves be obedient to your master that's we got around that one pretty easily a conservative years put the premium on order as opposed to justice and privileges at the top supporting hierarchy opposed to accountability of on the bottle so that we have black conservatives we have black centrists we have black progressives and we had to be honest about we always have and we always will be but it cannot be personal I mean that's why I'm somebody it says that well I'm I'm critical because I for personal reason I can't get an invitation after doing 65 events for free in the cold I've never worn a coat and I did it in Iowa and December there's no grounds for any kind of personal thing right and I would do it again if the only alternative was Sarah Palin and John McCain what are we talking about it I mean if Johnny Mathis is going against Pat Boone that's fine but I won't Curtis Mayfield I love all of them as a Christian but the point is they different they're very different and so in that regard we have to be principle in our criticism but we're also to be relentless in our criticism why because other groups are putting a whole lot of pressure on Barack Obama wall street over 4,000 lobbyists coming at him all the time where is the lobbyists for poor people how come we can't reauthorize the juvenile justice delinquency Act it's crucial for young people needs to be reauthorized every two-and-a-half years we've been trying to put pressure to do it crucial I come we can't get the Employment Free Choice Act for working people to support collective bargaining stronger can't get that support from the administration why too much pressure on the other side huge money wealth influence coming at him and he says what I need a billion dollars to run next time where's that billion dollars going to come from and when they give that money what do you think they looking for looking out for their own interests Oh somebody's got to raise their voices and a number I think I think more and more people are going to be raising their voices there's no doubt about it you had already had a very productive scholarly career before you publish race matters race matters was a different book though right this was a book that you wrote in which he wanted everyday folks right to be able to engage and and and it was seen as the beginning of this period of the black public intellectual all right your your conversation with sister bell hooks breaking bread you know folks like my cowardice and you know all these folks who emerged in this particular period speaking truth to power late great man a man a great man America right and you know that place has shifted now all right so now so much activity is occurring in social media and we've heard social media referenced a couple of times you know today and not always in positive ways you know folks here Twitter and Facebook and you know it's you know it's it's demon culture right it's everything that's wrong with America and everything that's wrong with young folks right you know sometime gets represented and what social media is but you're on Twitter and you got 200,000 followers right and to put this into some sort of context right so that means anytime Cornel West decides to say anything right in this particular space right 200,000 people have access to it and you know the things that I've heard about your presence in the presence of some of our colleagues Melissa hates well label Perry you know your dear brother Eddie cloud Monty Perry um name and all folks in prison in this case and the thing that we hear all the time from folks I'm on Twitter also follow me a new black man the thing that we hear all the time is that everyday folks are like well this is like what it was like when I was taking a Black Studies class in college right and so everything has changed now and how important has it been for you whether it's being on Twitter or over recording musical CDs or the time that you give to places like the Cornel West Academy for excellence to speak just for the love of speaking for the people you know we'll find it on a rare many of those kinds of things how important for you has it been for you to always make sure that you find an audience that needs to hear your voice all right now imagine you probably speak about 350 400 times a year you know you're like James Brown and Duke Ellington right you know Duke Duke Ellington and James Brown you know we're on the road 300 times a year all right James Brown would do three shows a night and then go into the studio right and lay down stuff you know there would be classic like cold sweat Duke Ellington right always said he stayed on the road because that was the only way that he could maintain the tradition if he wasn't out there performing it for people every night folks wouldn't have access to that tradition talk about what that means for you you know whether it's social media or being on the road you know at this point in time but it is true that the the musicians and the preachers have always been the models for me so I've always considered myself a Jesus loving blues man in the life of the mind those among those are my two roots the music and the church where the family have to sit that's what my memoirs really about brother West they're in love and out loud and I've been inspired by those folk who are on the road a lot so it is true that I do about maybe 220 or so a little Wayne does about three hundred and one so I was still behind that big bro but I drink less served and it does we love we love that Negro we love them we love it but but the the challenge is to take what you have to say where people are so I've taught in prison for 32 years going back to the prison program in college regarding state it could be Wagner it could be maximum-security and Trenton I'm there regularly we set up there may program and sing sing for the prisoners to have a college degree not just a B but a MA and same is true with churches where as a Christian I'm not a call preacher I'm a Lake Christian but I'm actually asked often times to speak behind the pulpit I'm tell him I'm a layperson God had too much wisdom that called me to preach I'm called to teach but you're there in the churches and similarly in terms of I've shifted actually to high schools and junior High's now to reach more and more young for exciting so in that sense is very consistent with what brother Antoine is doing with me with the young brothers here just to again like Duke and the others to keep the tradition alive among the younger phone you have to go where they are that's why I made three CD albums with Talib Kweli and Carrie s1 and raw digger but would never forget with Prince and so forth because that's yup that's where young folk are they listen to the music in the studio with Jill Scott they listen to Jill Scott now it's clear I can't say I don't I'm not in there singing I'm just in there running my mom they call it spoken word that's the honorific description of me just speaking or the Terence Blanchard she we did and won the Grand Prix for the greatest jazz album 19 to 2009 in France he had me on there 13 times spoken word but he's doing all the music with the fellow jazz musicians but that's where people are you go where the people are to keep the tradition alive yeah absolutely right right but for me then it's just continuous and consistent what with them with what I've always understood myself to be in terms of this you have an iPod no so so what do you listen what do you listen to your music on Oh turn tape on a record player yeah I'm old school I do have a CD player I just bought one one of those BOS you know we got herons been mentioning a couple of times he has this great song you know can you call a lady day and can you call on John Coltrane right who do you call on when we're Cornel West's weary and tired and need some some spiritual uplift right who's on that record player what I would have already called on Jesus now get my categories completed the music now go save you the music's going to soothe you the music's gonna empower you it's gonna enable you but actually I'm very old-school I tend to go back to DJ rentals and Ron banks that are dramatics oh yeah I go back to what you see is what you get what you see is what you get and there's a lot of Ted meals of Blue Magic and Donald Macpherson and the main ingredient oh yeah this is real old-school but Cooper gets brought into goodies jr. but that music in the popular vein of course is Marvin Gaye and donny hathaway and then luther vandross and Gladys Knight the emotions sister Wanda from Chicago these are the ones that help preserve my sanity and then on the jazz or Sonny Rollins and there's Mary Lou Williams and of course it's Coltrane we playin Coltrane doing doing the luncheon it smiles it's that music is a way of sustaining one and encouraging one again it's not south Vivek the way Jesus is for me but it's crucial in that regard and if when I'm really down and out there's one brother I can always go to James Cleveland yeah it's either Shirley Caesar speaking of North Carolina Shirley Caesar was she is North Korea's in Raleigh and she has their churches in Rome I was on stage with her one time in South Carolina that's one of the peaks of my career it surely ceases she something magnificent back in November you sat down at the New York Public Library and had a public discussion with Shawn Carter aka Jay Z about his new artistic memoir decoded Jay Z decoded how are you feeling about hip hop these days what was it like to sit down and have this what was really a pretty intense conversation with Jay Z no jay-z's and lyrical genius there's no doubt about it I was pushing him because he was occupied he said with trying to get inside the life of gangsters and gangs of the human beings but gangsters also need to be accountable and we don't want our young folk to be gangster want y'all to be decent compassionate intelligent freedom-fighters concerned about other people that right is that radio that makes sense right but I was telling jay-z I said if you listen to Curtis Mayfield a super fly he was talking about getting inside the life of a gangster from the vantage point of a freedom fighter listen to Fred is dead any of the other singles he kept track of the humanity of the gangster but was critical of the gangster activity and so I was pushing jay-z saying are you aspiring to be the kind of person who looks at the world through the lens of the freedom fighter even as you trying to get inside the life of the gangster the way Curtis did and I had brought Harry Belafonte and Lupe Fiasco with me because I wanted both generations Harry Belafonte towering figure freedom fighter great artist Lupe Fiasco young brother aspiring artists but already a freedom fighter so we had James II kind of sandwiched in as it were and jay-z was you know he he's a very very brilliant brother in so many ways and the conversation now I thought was it was a good one and yeah I appreciated him asking me to to be the interviewer in there we go I think that contemporary hip-hop is in its dominant form a very shallow and Hollow thing that it is so obsessed with money fame pleasure it's two sexes and putting down a humanity of sisters of all colors but especially black and brown sisters so we have to look for those prophetic voices in the hip-hop now keep in mind that you got the recording industry the radio industry and the radio industry all tied together under monopolies so they're only interested in a certain kind of music for the most part if you're going to be a counter voice it's going to be difficult to get a contract we see the struggle that brother Lupe had just to get lasers out you're not gonna hear them on the radio you know hardly ever gonna hear em on the radio and so you end up doing your music either performing in order to sustain yourself financially or I have a job and do it at night because there's a fear of telling the truth about black humanity when it comes to music because people know how crucial music is for sustaining and empowering black people so if you keep their music thin and shallow and hollow and bubblegum like you're gonna end up with shallow hollow bubblegum like folk I tell young folk all the time the qualitative difference between being a body stimulator as opposed to a soul stir he Sam Cooke came out of the soul stirrers because he was stirring your soul but these days the music on the surface just stimulating the body stimulating the body it doesn't touch the soul because all the crises come in your life the music is useless and your mama dies the music is useless it can't speak to your soul to allow you to overcome this catastrophe that everybody has to confront sooner or later in a life Lou Rawls comes out of the soul stirrers so when he crossed over you could feel him still stir in your soul even though he wasn't thing about Jesus sister Aretha Franklin Lord happens in stratosphere all by herself in so many ways I mean you got to talk about sarahvani Billie Holiday we talked about the level of genius or some I like Rita Franklin but she's rooted in Bethel in Detroit her church and her genius father Reverend C L Franklin James Cleveland on the piano can you imagine all that one church Oh and that wasn't a praise team was not appraised that was a quiet the praise team is qualitatively different than a choir praise team is stimulating the choir you all see the point I'm trying to make in terms of what it means to stir the soul to touch you at the deepest level so you want to be a different kind of person a better person a more loving person a stronger person that's the kind of music we need we don't have a lot of music like that nowadays I'm a it's a yeah it's a sad thing with hip-hop the point of the jay-z made hip hop does not have spaces where there could be a variety of voices singing at the same time in harmony right but you know what that means not to have the discipline to learn how to have your voice fitted with another voice so that it has a collective expression so you can't get too dramatic who's the last group like the dramatics and black musical culture Delfonics well I mean that generate boys the men was an example of tied to babyface but I mean it's about gone.i so now maybe Jodeci Joe to see what mint-condition is still going I saw now Raheem DeVaughn well also blessed to work with his arm should have been the double album that brother contained that's very important and no really had a sing in pitch Glenn Jones Jerell avert this serious singing that comes from your gut and you have a mastery of your craft and that's true for intellectuals have the same challenge but it's true for anything you do in life you see and once you lose that it's just a matter of just being successful making what I what kind of knowledge you won't know somebody like myself Beyonce she's interesting case in this regard because Beyonce actually is a talented sister but she lives in the culture of superficial spectacle so people are much more concerned with how she looks that's why she got to change her dress every three songs and Aretha just come out there her in the microphone for three hours that's all she needs because just coming from her and not putting Beyonce down because Beyonce its talented she know she's not a reason but that's not a put-down nobody's Aretha you know but I mean Beyonce's not Gladys Knight Yas is not one of us another emotions but she is the greatest star of the culture of superficial spectacle because in the eyes of many folk she looks good and I mean I go aren't you it's sad but I mean Jill Scott looks good Angie stone looks good to me let's just say you have had a history of being with some quite attractive women I think the first time I met you you was probably still with Kathleen battle a great opera singer everybody knows that the Cornel West style you know we're looking at it right now alright and you've been absolutely consistent with that for decades in your book race matters you were very critical of the shoddy dress of black intellectuals but of course it's now 2011 and and we got young men who sag and the brothers who sag aren't all necessarily trying to be thugs right you know the uniform at the moment but we now have dress codes we have anti-sagging laws you know stating florida's trying to pass a statewide law that on the one level really criminalized as black males right you know in terms of their choice of clothing right and it was a brother Renee who talked earlier about you know part of our responsibility as adults is to equip our children to be able to effectively switch codes if you outside what your boys sagging is perfectly fine to view in a classroom right if you're going for a job interview right you have to switch up but then we have a situation like our folks down at Morehouse you know under the leadership of Robert Franklin and of course they've installed this dress code that's very explicit about grills in the mouth about caps you know in the classroom in the cafeteria any men who are interested in cross-dressing so no dressing I mean very explicit right no dresses no high heels no pocketbooks what's going on at this moment that we seem to be much more interested in containing blackness as something that is respectable as opposed to allowing blackness to flourish in its diversity yeah I think part of it is is that you got two things happening one is that we have less people who are fundamentally concerned about freedom and more people who are fundamentally concerned about comfort and in a situation like that freedom is reduced to life's in chess mess and licentiousness is just doing anything that you like at the moment see that's not freedom right it's not free in fact that some booty calls and I wrote was called freedom fre edu em be free DOM and you come out of the 60s face of American terrorism called Jim and Jane crow lynching they like to call it segregation but we know that's to tame a word it was just segregation it was a eyes that people that keep them so intimidated and scared and deferential to the powers that be that they never want to straighten their backs up and organize and mobilize because they dislike the folk who look like them because they were taught to dislike themselves so that ization was psychic political social and economic across-the-board so when people talk about freedom you already had to be courageous you had to be willing to die or brother Martin King said you have to have your cemetery clothes on that's what was in North Carolina just a few decades ago right if I run around talk about freedom in the midst of Jim Crow North Carolina she better be willing to die and make sure you need a cross and the blood nowadays he broke the back of American apartheid break the back of American terrorism break the back of Jim Crow and Jane crow and you left folk loose and they think of freedom of just doing anything I want to do obey nobody oh no we noticed you obeying the mass media all the time yeah upsets with your pleasure where you get that from you upsets with status where you get that for me to learn that from your grandmama you putting anybody down you cut some folk out where'd you get that from got it from my friends where they get it from mass media oh so you're not free you just got another form of bondage what you think you're doing what you like you're not thinking for yourself well for Christians we should be the freest people in the world because we've got an obedience you're an almighty in the face of mighty power ought to be the frías but very few Christians are that free they won't comfort want convenience they want contentment they want that blessing in the form of Alexis rather than that blessing in the form of empowerment to love others there's a qualitative difference and so our young folk caught up you know within the the mass driven market driven culture that we live in find themselves more and more drifting away from the sources that would allow them to be free as opposed to just life's inches does that make that make sense the form you know I know you always soak so patient to me sit in this heap like this for so long good oh oh you're so kind Antoine you often to be saluted well you ought to be saluted I'm tell you bring so many people like this Saturday afternoon I'm glad you got to church fans they help you out a little bit but I bet what but yo tell us and I was just talking on smilin west radio show that we have about that law at your table out in Florida yeah just this weekend we were hitting it hard and see the worst thing you want to do though is just try to coerce people without giving them a reason and to try to force people to do something without giving them a context because I think it's a wonderful thing that our young people do dressed in such a way that you feel at home with yourself with a style that's not imitating others because you don't want to be a copy you want to be an original but at the same time you want to be able to think it through for yourself see you're not just going through life because people are coercing you to do it I think this yeah mom gave me these reasons and that makes a lot of sense or it puts a smile on her face and that smile means something so I'm gonna act this way that's beautiful but you have it inside of you you're not being forced all the time cuz as soon as you get into a context where you have force you go right back into it again because you haven't convinced yourself that you ought to be doing it and that's what we have to convince our young people convince them these are the things that ought to be done because they're right they're moral and you come from a tradition that has taught you it in such a way and you are convinced that that's the way to flower in Florida produced by duke university online at duke.edu

Channel: John Hope Franklin Center at Duke University

Views: 34,766

Keywords: Duke, University, John, Hope, Franklin, Center, Baptist, Grove, Church, Cornel West, Excellence, Cornel West Academy for Excellence, black men, Obama, era

Id: qcTf7QrRGhE

Length: 62min 10sec (3730 seconds)

Published: Mon May 23 2011