The Empire is melting w/ Cornel West

we are joined Again by our good friend and brother Dr Cornell West welcome back to the podcast Dr West well I'm always blessed to be both with you sister Jen and with Red Nation indeed very very special place on the internet and in the communication system Red Nation well thanks for joining us um we have a lot to discuss about your presidential campaign but also there's a lot been going on in the world uh and I I kind of wanted to start with Harvard you know you were at the Harvard Divinity School recently uh pres the president Claudine gay resigned after immense pressure from the you know the donors at Harvard but also um you know some people some nefarious figures uh in the Pro Zionist sort of Israel lobby but I wanted to to go back to your experience at Harvard I know um there was a controversy that had erupted in the early 2000s with the former president Larry Summers uh who basically accused you of not doing scholarship and research while he himself was promoting a sort of agenda that was suggesting that women uh didn't hold the same sort of intelligent and cognitive capacities as men but I I I want hear your thoughts on the recent resigning of Claudine gay uh in the midst of this immense backlash against uh the academy especially at the Ivy Leagues yeah I think one important thing to keep in mind is that um these are struggles within the professional managerial class so that Harvard for example is a ruling class institution in terms of shaping the elites who go to wall W Street who go to Silicon Valley who go to the Pentagon to go to the state department and so forth so it's fascinating to see it as an intra struggle within the professional man managerial strata of the ruling class now for the most part indigenous peoples Black Folk Brown folk we didn't gain access to this space until the 1970s as a result of the mass rebellions especially the dated brother Martin was shot 12 20 over 200 rebellions and so they begin to open their doors and some of us made it in see I'm the class of 1974 I arrived in 70 Martin was shot in 68 it takes a whole year for the cycle to set in and so when we came in you know I'm work with the Black Panther Party breakfast program prison program and they're looking at us like what is going on who are these aliens right good God Almighty so that it's important to just keep that institutional framework in place so that by the time you get a black president like claudian gay who was the dean of Faculty when I had my second class I had a first class with Larry Summers I had been University professor in 1996 he arrived in 2001 the first thing he did was what he met with every Department other than Afro-American studies and when skip gives him a call Skip Gates called him and say hey what's going on he says you all have been the public face of Harvard for too long this is a new era so that's already a certain attack on black folk then he calls me in in October he arrives in September and attacks me saying my leftwing politics associated with hip hop that's embarrassment and so forth you haven't published I said I published six books in the last eight years what are you talking about you haven't published book in in your life and I looked him straight in his eyes I said I am as much more Harvard than you are I went to undergrad when you were still in junior high school you know what what you're dealing with a free black man here now I ain't got no chip on my shoulder I'll treat you right and I have a gr and a smile but you disrespect me I Come Out Swinging like Muhammad Ali and it was clear we were not gonna live together and so I decided to leave right away because he he was going to attack you know the whole department of AF americ studies and so on so when I returned uh under Larry BAU they I'm I'm older and I've got a at the Divinity School and so forth and it's a professor of practice so doesn't even have ten I wasn't even worried about ten years because I don't even worry about these kind of titles you know every context for me is just for struggle whatever it is you see and there you had to struggle over the pro Palestinian situation you had Palestinian students who didn't have a faculty advisor I became their faculty advisor we would have events we'd have difficulty trying to find space and rooms for the events I said well wait a minute I thought we were in the Free Speech free inquiry and so forth it was clear there was a bias there were two professors who came up for tenure who were voted unanimously but for tenure but had very strong critiques of Israel's occupation both denied so say I so I said to myself well let me just push for my own self just to see what it was be like to get 10 I've already got University Professor that's 19 professors out of 2000 but I had been away for 20 years so I come back and they say there's no way you can get tenure I said wait a minute because my age no it couldn't be that because the whole host professors who are already uh uh gaining assess to the same position my age uh uh is it my politics around black people is my politics around theh class issues with Bernie no it wasn't that we got other professors to do that ah it's a Palestinian issue that's what it was and I raised that issue and The Clash took place and I left wrote that letter you know resignation so now now keep in mind claudin gay she is the dean of the faculty at that time I give her a call I never get a call back from her because I know she's afraid she's scared she's fearful and that's her boss her boss is the one I'm clashing with you see uh uh now what has happened is some of the same forces now push her out even though early on she was on the inside and it held my situation at arms length I understood it because you know you don't want to you go against your boss you lose your job we understand that you understand some of us try to have principal and even lose our jobs but that's not for everybody and that's cool everybody ain't gonna be no Martin Luther King Jr Fanny Lou hyon Russell memes you know certain people are gonna be be extremes and other folk gonna be middle and lukewarm and so forth and so so what is happened is what well we know plagiarism had very little to do with this they were looking for any Lawrence tribe who was celebrated constitutional lawyer he plagiarized Peter J Abraham's book justices and president nothing nothing he plagiarized less than supposedly uh uh sister claing gay what they were concerned about is there's a vicious attack on diversity equity and inclusion which is an attack on people's of color there's a vicious attack on any person persons who raise their voices critical of Israel especially at this moment you mention the word genocide you mention the word aparti mention the two words ethnic cleansing you are in a world of trouble now the irony is and of course I want to protect all students you know Jewish students are feeling unsafe and so forth we're going to respect all students respect Jewish students whatever students whatever color indigenous students black students you got to respect students across the board but the argument becomes anti-Semitism is running a muck at Harvard what a Palestinian students when I was there five 10 15 years ago getting marginalized all the time nobody said a mumbling word at all professors like myself get pushed out nobody says a mumbling word now all of a sudden you gonna have anti-Semitism running a m wait a minute out of the last five presidents at Harvard you got for Jewish Brothers right now the interim president brother Garber he's a Jewish brother percentage of Jews on the faculty people would have to find out what it is probably be somewhere around 20 25% 2% of the population does that sound like an institution where anti-Semitism is running a muck that doesn't mean we ought not to be concerned about anti-jewish sensibilities we we're moral human beings were concerned but you see this is all window dressing and what is happening is I'm sorry to go on and on but what's happening is you got a slice of the big donors who are deeply conservative Jewish Brothers part of a right-wing Zionist project that are that's putting tremendous pressure on Harvard same is true at upen same is true at Colombia same is true at a whole host of other universities and and in some ways CLA threatening to withhold funds millions of dollars if you don't do X we're not going to give you money quick Pro quote transactional to the court what does that mean that means that places like Harvard and pin more and more become morally bankrupt because big money dictates policy at these places so truth beauty goodness what we're supposed to be focusing on when it comes to educational institutions pushed aside is what we w't giv the money that we will give you that that's about as as as as as obscene as you can get really we see the same thing foreign policy raw power genocide and Gaza Wars in Iraq Afghanistan we can go on and on drones Dr in Somalia we can go on and on in that regard and of course it begins with the 400-year war against precious indigenous brothers and sisters I mean indigenous brothers and sisters almost sit back and say this is ain't new to us at all this is exactly what the behavior has been this is what the logic has been these chickens are coming home to roost now the rest of the society can see what we've had to come to terms with all these hundreds of years yeah you know you bring you bring up some really important like points and I don't really talk about my job on this podcast you know I'm a I'm an assistant professor here at the University of Minnesota in American Indian studies um but you know I was there at Harvard for a fellowship in the Charles warrren Center and Harvard's one of Harvard's original Charters actually sets aside money and resources for the education of native people it was a treaty that was made or an agreement that was made with the the the English crown at the time um and the crown had allocated some resources that essentially saved Harvard from you know collapsing and that original charter has literally been buried on Harvard grounds the place where the the buildings where the the native students were supposed to stay uh is is acknowledged um by a private donation from I believe um the hodon donor who put this up because Harvard didn't want to acknowledge it there was a movement to actually get Harvard to acknowledge its Charter and to have tuition waivers for Native students and to acknowledge that this was part of one of the original missions of Harvard and it's it's fundamentally denied that but we don't see the outrage of anti-indigenous um you know racism and structural kind of eraser of native people across the faculty and staff uh and in fact I was speaking with um some really great friends and colleagues of mine Nora erad and uh Mark Lamont Hill at at ruter University and an individual Congressman I can't remember his name um he wrote a letter trying to get me banned from Rutger's campus me a Lota person banned from from ruer University and I thought that was really fascinating because I went online and I looked up ruers land grant they have over I think it was 200,000 Acres of native territory that was quote unquote gifted to their University and a lot of that is actually carved out of our territory and was a result of the extermination of Lota and Dakota people so that they could have an educational institution and I said who's you know who should be banning who from campus you know how how dare you ban somebody who actually has a historical claim you know because we're not even allowed to talk about suler Colonial ISM that's the word we're not even begin to have a conversation what landback means and these are questions that we you know we want to ask you in in this uh in this conversation but I'll turn it over to to Jen because I know she has some questions for you yeah so thank you again for joining us Dr West um it's such an honor to be speaking with you um I know that some peblo students had the opportunity to hear you speak when they were touring Harvard um Princeton Princeton um some years back and uh some of our comrades actually had the pleasure of joining you so just know that you've been influencing um our development and our politics for a long time um I just wanted to throw that in there um but last time we spoke um Nick had mentioned that a recent poll showed that over 44% of Americans would be willing to vote third party or for an independent dependent candidate um in the next election if it's between um Trump and Biden and so um since we last talked um we learned that you're not seeking the endorsement of the green party and uh I just wanted to ask um what is um you know why did you decide to run as an independent candidate yes no I appreciate you those kind of remarks about uh indigenous brothers and sisters there at Harvard and Princeton because I know Princeton has a program every summer there was a wonderful brother who graduated from Princeton I forget his name he's an indigenous brother he brings the students over and I was blessed to see them every summer that I was there and I I'd have a magnificent time learning and listening because they came with some deep deep Insight so that I appreciate you beginning with that uh that memory that's a very golden memory a set of Golden Memories for me but no I discovered that the uh the green party had too many uh internal Dynamics and too many requirements they wanted me to to have four different debates within the green party it's about seven presidential candidates within the green party and you had to go to a number of different states within the green party and given my limited budget of my campaign I've got to go directly to the people I really do I like spend time on skit row I want to spend time with the black Farmers I I'm gonna get to Min Minnesota spend time with my precious indigenous Brothers sister I spend time with my uh Palestinian uh brothers and sister just two nights ago and last night I was in the black community here in La at Lamar Park so that I I 98% of my time is spending time with the people the green party had me spending too much time with with its own internal requirements and Dynamics and so forth now of course I gave up 17 States we're going to have a good 15 states by the eyeses of March by March 15th we already got Alaska's the first one it came forward already and we're just out of the gates January 1 so we're on the Move we really are on the move but it does mean that we have to uh uh to work harder to get in order to get on the ballot and the green party did provide that but I just needed to be free and I needed to take the time that I want to take and prioritize the people that's the crucial thing but you know what's very interesting to me that I I engage in these debates with the right-wing folk and more and more that that they're they're saying uh well when you talk about genoi and Gaza does that mean then that indigenous peoples ought to have rights that we're not giving them when you're asking Israel to give rights to indigenous peoples I said oh you don't say I'm glad you see the parallel I'm glad you see the similarity of a settler Colonial project and they say well well well there there's no way anybody would ever think of giving indigenous people's ex or treating indigenous people this way we're here we're here to stay there's no I said oh so there's no moral argument at all it's just an argument of sheer force and power and presence is that what we're talking about here then if that's clear let's just say it let's just say it you're talking about terrorism coming from above you always got these designations of terrorist organizations and often times they're counterterrorist organizations and I don't believe that you know innocent people ought to be killed and so forth but I'm believing just War combatant ought to go at combatants right because the black black organizations have been counterterrorist organization NAACP was founded when there was massive attacks on black people in Springfield Illinois I mean the whole history history of the black Freedom struggle is a struggle of counter Terror the whole history of indigenous peoples once European settlers arrive with counter ter so people more and more now I'm I'm noticing this uh uh they're saying that well are you saying indeed that um there's been the war crimes and genocide and so forth that the United States ought to be taken before the IC and the icj absolutely if they're wrong if they committed crimes I believe in responsibility I don't think that's a radical notion people ought to be accountable and answerable to their actions over the years well that's just bizarre ah you see 2024 is going to be the year of exposure ripping the veil of that which has been hidden and concealed for a long time and of chickens coming home to Rus in the language of Malcolm X people are beginning to see through the lies and how these lies have hidden Crimes and one of the things I've been blessed with is a platform where I can raise my voice and make these connections based on a morality and a spirituality and a care and concern for those who have been occupied dominated subjugated lied on demeaned and degraded and that's the kind of Freedom that I'm blessed to have as an independent and the green party has some wonderful people in it there's no doubt about that there have some wonderful people in it but I'm glad to be an independent candidate and be able to go directly to the folk and talk about this I have a follow-up question uh to that and it's just a kind of a t like a strategy thing how do you plan to get on the ballots in in these states and what is the strategy because I I listened to a podcast um episode with uh an a brother named Omar suan who you may be familiar with um and he was talking about how a Muslim Arab people in this country are peeling away from the Democratic party and I would say you know um given the you know the the representation and the demographics of of native people in this country they tend to vote you know you know we we tend to be rule uh you know in on reservations and things like that but and we're surrounded by Red the wrong kind of red maybe voting districts and we kind of be become these kind of islands of opposition to the status quo or to the neoliberal capitalist order and you know one thing that he brought out in his in this talk he was giving to um Middle East ey he said America is dead children and he said this in the context of the constant bombardment of Kasa by American bombs with The Alibi of American support you know the moral support the support at the UN the bloody hands that were raised in vetoing un Security Council resolutions for a CE a ceasefire but also using cynically using black representation and both instances to do this and and you know the the question here is there is like what Jen just said there is a strong sentiment in this country um for an alternative and I don't believe that we're actually given an alternative in this moment so how how do we amarate this situation and what does your campaign represent yes yes yes well I mean both you and sister Jen hitting Nails on the head here namely that we're at a historical moment now where we're able to say things that many of us have been saying for 45 years but it now has a resonance it has a visibility it has a saliency and it has a gripping power that it's never had before it's almost like living in the 60s when things began to melt living in ice AG things freeze me all of a sudden things start melting and people began to see things they hadn't seen before and that's what we're living in right now now it's also a moment where fascist can become more appealing because people feel as if they're losing their footing that's what happens when things begin to melt they lose their footing they can look for a Neo fascist pip Piper they can scapegoat to most vulnerable be immigrants indigenous peoples Black Folk women gay brothers lesbian sisters whoever it is Arabs and so forth or it can be what we represent which is these are things we've been saying for a while this this is how you connect the dots this is how you make the connections in such a way that we have some organizational capacity because the problem has always been not just we need more courageous Visionary voices we need capacity for organization that's why solidarity is so important that's why we're g be there on Saturday in Washington DC Jesse Jackson's having a big emergency on Gaza with the Rainbow Coalition that Thursday Friday I'm going to it later on this week so hit both of those at the same time now how does that translate in terms of ballot well I thank God I got now almost 20,000 volunteers you know 20,000 Volunteers in each state and they hit the ground certain States there's no problem at all you know Tennessee Louisiana 500 signatures $500 we got some loow hanging fruit almost 20 states are like that now New York is just crazy you know they give you uh 42 days you got to raise 46,000 signatures and they will invalidate one out of two so you got to get about 92,000 signatures in 42 days that's one of the ways in which the corrupt duopoly the corrupt two-party system makes it difficult for Independents to emerge makes it difficult for independent parties or third parties to emerge I mean the the the hypocrisy of let's say Biden talking about I want to save the soul of America and support genocide and can't treat indigenous people's right and the architect of mass incarceration at home and supports Iraqi War there Afghanistan war and you gonna be the one to save the soul of democracy you wanna somehow you want you act as if you're the last uh wall for democracy you can't even have democracy in your own party you can't even have primaries to have a Socratic conversation that'll allow the the insurgents within your own party to raise their voices and I can tell you the vicious attacks and assaults that's coming at some of us from the Biden folk now the Trump folk we know they already off the chart I mean they fascist they're explicit about that there's no you know they they're very very upfront and in your face but the problem is you see if you're going to be anti-fascist and all you can come up with is a pro genocidal Democrat then America face who you are be honest and candid about who you are we have a choice between a Neo fascist leading us toward a second Civil War or a militarist leading us toward a third world war that's the choice thank God the younger generation I know you a young brother brother Nick but sister Jen looks much much much younger than you and she got that younger generation they have a higher percentage of being open to Independent candidates than your generation or my generation at least you know the polls say that right because they're tired of the lies they want the real thing tired of the sanitize narratives that that that that don't want to expose them to the real truth and and the scale of suffering that's hidden beneath the lies that are told and that's very much what this campaign is about but we're still very much in process you know when we had to dialogue with number of months ago and you know you get the call from anahita to my wife we G to stay in contact now we going to stay in close contact absolutely because the Red Nation is is crucial and your book brother ohoo that's a powerful text I know you a kind modest brother humble brother you don't want a prti but by Brother Nick's book whoever's listening I can tell you I appreciate the endorsement yeah I mean I agree with you Dr West um I think Young Folks um you know my age and younger are certainly interested and not only third party candidates or independent candidates they're um interested in seeing an overhaul right um and it's been very inspiring to see this because you know I'm very young myself but I acknowledge that um it's the people who come after me that hold my future in their hands right the Youth hold our future and um in that we've also seen a ton of support for Palestine coming from Young Folks you know be it um you know they're the first generation to see a genocide live streamed from their phones um every day at every hour they're following people in Gaza um and this is really impacting them and it's also really impacting um I think the way um you were talking about soulcraft on the last episode and that was really profound to hear um people are taking interest and you know they're like well maybe I should learn about Islam and what it is because they're so inspired by um you know the perseverance and resistance of Palestinian people and in that conversation about soulcraft right you know Nick made it clear that that resonates deeply with Native people here as well and my question for you is do you think that Palestinian resistance like the kind we're seeing in Gaza right now do you think that is also a kind of soulcraft right the profound love we see amidst these moments of chaos and Terror um they're profoundly affecting people everywhere and uh you know I saw somebody say recently you know we're not freeing Palestine Palestine is freeing us Palestine is freeing our minds and our hearts and our spirits and showing us this profound resistance so yeah my question is do you think that Palestinian resistance is an example of soulcraft that's a powerful and profound and beautiful question though because I think that the uh resilience and the res existence of all oppressed people is a beautiful thing it's morally magestic at certain historical moments certain oppressed people's cause becomes more visible than others when I was coming along in the 1960s it was black people in the United States it was workers in France it was workers in Mexico and and by the 80s and 90s it was South Africa now we know there was magnificent struggles going on all around the world indigenous people struggles going on for 400 years indigenous people's struggles have have not had the same kind of visibility that the black struggle has it has exactly the same moral status it has exactly the same same spiritual status but the visibility was such see so but what does that mean that means that we have to use whichever oppressed group's cause is visible to make the connection to oppressed people's struggles and traditions of resistance that are not receiving as much attention so at this particular moment it is the Palestinian struggle that is heard in every corner of the globe right now every nook and cranny in cultures around the world World partly because of corporate media but also because as you rightly noted you know the genocides of the Armenians or the tootsies or Jews in Germany or uh indigenous peoples in in the Americas they were not own cell phones this genocide is actually seeable visible as you say that that has an impact on people Minds I mean I I was at a group last night of Black Folk sister got up she said brother West I've been very critical of you CU look like you talking about Palestinians all the time you're not talking about black people and we want somebody like yourself to talk about us every time you get out there we want you to talk about us but you talking about Palestinians and then we see you talking about indigenous peoples and you talking about workers moving what about us black people black people black people she said now I see because I didn't realize what was going going on in the Middle East I hadn't taken any notice of the Palestinian situation I see it now I I I I ought to be ashame of myself how could I not be concerned as a black person well that's a moment of expanding Consciousness everybody begins with their masas and daddies and grandmas and granddaddies and aunts and uncles and so forth but we use that as the launching pad to become internationalists to embrace oppress people around the world but were're rooted she remained rooted but she was very critical she thought I was too internationalist I said no the global and the local go together they are tied together and solidarity is crucial in that regard but there's no doubt now that uh the Palestinian struggle has as I said before you know it's it's really uh exposed the US Empire in its barbarity and beastiality there's no other language that's appropriate in light of what's going on and then when you make the connections between what's what what what what it is enabling and then connected to indigenous peoples in the USA and say oh my God what does Jefferson mean when he talks about the Savages in the Constitution about supposedly concerned about Liberty and freedom what is the Empire of Liberty anytime you see Empire you know there's Imperial domination so Empire of Liberty is that contradictory is that a lie within a lie what what's going on let's let's let's unpack this now of course Scholars have been at this for a long time and brother Nick's work in scholarship and teaching and I know Sister Jen I know you write and think about this as well probably published as well that the these these truths have been taken place and put forward but not as highly visible at a moment when everybody's got to have a view on Palestine and when you have a view can you then make that connection so that the solidarity is such that anytime you talk about Palestine as I try to do I like to always tell the story of the ways in which settler Colonial regimes in Australia in Canada in the USA in Israel also in Liberia among my own black people we went to Liberia with a settler Colonial project imitating America subjugate indigenous peoples rename the country Liberia Liberty the capitals Monrovia at the James Monroe slaveholder hey Black Folk what's going on well we know settler colonialism cuts cross skin pigmentation it's human choices human choices and that's why the issues of morality and political solidarity and spirituality become very important and for me that's that's a crucial part of soulcraft the shaping of one's Soul character tied to Integrity honesty decency generosity all of us are going to fail because we're human beings and the standards are high but we know what the standards are and we forever aspire to those standards and that's why we need each other to keep each other accountable as to what the standards are because it's a sad moment really when the think of history of my own black Freedom struggle uh and you say well how many voices of black people are really out there telling the truth about the barbarism of the American Empire you got the two black folk in the UN stopping ceasefire Martin Luther King Jr turns over in his grave John C train love supre turns over in his grave Nina Simone turns over Malcolm X turns over in his grave lorine hbur the Boyce all of those Freedom Fighters hey we sacrificed everything for you and you end up being a fig leaf for the Empire standing in the way of a ceasefire don't you know that just a hundred years ago your own of that kind of sellout just like you got beautiful wave of Jewish young brothers and sisters what are they doing shutting stuff down Jewish voices for peace if not now they going against their mothers going against their fathers going against their grandparents in the name of what Integrity honesty de de truth justice that's a beautiful thing to see you know just a a quick followup to that um somebody like gugo Chavez he represents kind of the uniting of Afro and Indigenous people his he he descends from both of those Traditions but he was also uh closely I mean he's people say he's a socialist but he also said that Jesus Christ was a revolutionary uh he subscribed to uh Liber ation theology you know of something that looked Bey you know knew that there was something Beyond just the material world that was inspiring people to resist and it's fascinating because the ansala movement in Yemen you know the US media calls them houis they actually Drew inspiration for their movement uh from uh Hugo Chavez saying that we need a kind of uh uh you know a the not just a theological but a spiritual kind of resistance it's not just physical military you know political economic but it's also spiritual resistance and so I think um you know hou that that or not the houis the so-called houthis the ansala movement is an indigenous movement that comes from Yemen is from you know Arabic culture uh and it's also a combination of people who are not just Muslims as well um but we see this sort of same uh uh kind of spiritual ferocity and intensity um you know with indigenous movement here and you see you know just read read the obituary of Sitting Bull in the New York Times he was called a fanatic he was called somebody who subscribed to the Ghost Dance religion as somebody who was worshiping death a death cult you know essentially and we see the same language describing and dehumanizing and criminalizing Palestinian resistance whether they're Christians whether they're Muslims it's the same idea that this is a kind of you know uh resistance movement that that worships death and I I want to get your kind of opinion on that and why it's important to deconstruct um these these sort of Western narratives not only of of spirituality as Central too because I want I want I want to ask it's like well then who is your god that allows you to bomb and kill children you know that's my question um but yeah I just if you have if you have thoughts on that absolutely and the invoking of amalik 1 Samuel the 15 chapter the 3 verse amalik the group that tries to Ambush the Israelites on their way to the promised land and they are told to do what kill every child every man every woman every oxen every sheep well you see that itself has a history that Christian imperialist judaic imperialist have used to subjugate indigenous peoples you see because one CE the white supremacy kicks in they don't want to talk about Amos Justice let Justice roll down like Waters and righteous is like a mighty stream they don't want to talk about Esther standing up against the king they don't want to talk about Isaiah no no they're going to find those elements and there those elements are there in these religious Traditions every religious tradition can be used to dehumanize people the question is who has the courage to ask accent to prophetic elements and the prophetic potential of religious traditions and um I was blessed to meet brother Hugo you know we had a long long conversation he gave me to his book that big book on uh was his book was a book on the boulevar uh in his bolivarian Revolution he was kind enough actually to use the Spanish translation of my book democracy matters as part of his literacy Pro program and so went all around the country myself Harry Bella fonte and Danny Glover and so forth uh uh reflecting on the folk as they wrestled both with the text and as they uh were talking about ways that he was trying to empower poor people and and he had a two he had three books on his desk I talked with him for about six hours he had the Bible and talked about his parents and the Bible and how he was still a Christian and I'm so glad brother West you still talk about your Christianity so many of my Leti his comrades a critical religion it's opiate of the people spirituality is always an escape you have to be tough and secular and scientific he said any time I hear you talk about Christianity always applaud then he had Robin and Cru he had the Robinson cruso Daniel defo where you think and work with your hands so that knowing and doing go hand in hand the kind of theory practice unity that many of our Marxist comrades talk about you see uh and then he's deeply into the culture and the music as well uh uh so it it would it it was fascinating and I think uh as as Freedom Fighters we have to always always accent spirituality morality the resilience of the Soul yes we want a rigorous analysis of capitalism of imperialism of patriarchy you know all the structures of domination absolutely and the Bible's not going to give you that you can't turn to the Bible and get a critique of Amazon no it's not there no but they can give you some values and lens to which you view the world so that you didn't have a critique of monopolies under predatory capitalist conditions that are obsessed with profit profit profit profit money money making money money money making you see uh uh and of course you know for Black Folk and for indigenous peoples it's almost like welcome home you know we never gave up on spirituality we we were never duped by secular scientific views of the world being the end all and be all no no no look at the cultures and traditions of indigenous peoples and their relations to each other truth nature environment and so forth and so on and everyone has to be criticized I'm not saying IND peoples have some built-in Monopoly on truth no no no everybody needs to be scrutinized and so forth but there's dominant tendencies in various civilizations and and and and we see you know we're headed toward the whole planet going under we're headed toward M attempts of ordinary people to to govern themselves radical democracy all of those are at stake all of them are about to collapse in light of the organized greed and institutionalized hatred of these sett colonial projects so I guess the last question um is just you know we I know you have to get off the call here soon but we just wanted to hear your last you know your final thoughts on there's this notion of landback I'm sure you've heard the the slogan uh we've been targeted we've been criticized Fox News you know has our our faces and our you know our friends and our comrades and our relatives saying you know this is a radical ideology that's trying to destroy the United States etc etc etc and they're going to do Native people want to do you know what our ancestors did to them exterminate them remove them from the land take away their rights destroy their economies subject them to a dominant ideology that kind of mentality and I think it's a it's a cynicism it's a projection it's it's an acknowledgement on one hand that there that genocide was committed that settler colonialism is a thing uh that it was practi against indigenous people but even the articulation of Freedom uh that you know not only do we need land back um for livelihood because if we look at land owners and ownership within this uh this uh system this capitalist system there's an owning class and there's a non-owning class there's a renter class but yet there's the psychological wages of whiteness as the boys put it that keeps some people invested within a a white supremacist framework against their own not only our Liberation but their own Liberation that they're not even they're they're getting psychological wages from this but they can't imagine a future or a a present where property relations do not govern social relations or that social relations are premised on equality or that not all land not all nature not all beings not all living things on this planet and in this Cosmos deserve to be commodified for a profit that some things have a value like secret sites likea like the Black Hills they they have an intrinsic value of who we are as people you don't build a pipeline in the Grand Canyon you don't build you know a pipeline in these natural wonders but yet nature is turned into a commodity not for just not just for you know so uh you know the the benefit of all social beings or you know so uh for like the social wealth but for private plunder and so when we talk about landback we think of landback meaning the people who worked the land historically who have unpaid wages for the land and the labor and the exploitation that they experience because they also have a relationship to that land that includes enslave you know uh black people and and their descendants that includes the white worker at Walmart who doesn't have any relationship to somebody like Donald Trump but may but is told that white supremacy unites them as a people right and so when we talk about landback we're also talking about a larger project of decolonization that begins you know with your mind with your spirit your heart but also on the land itself and our relationship with the land is fundamentally governed by our relationship with each other as human beings uh as well as our relationships to the non-human world you know animals plants the waters that also deserve that kind of respect and I just want to hear some of your final thoughts uh a meditation if you will on you know what landback would mean for your campaign yes I number one of reasons why landback is very important for my campaign because coming out of Legacy mon King Jr I believe in wholesale abolition of poverty and for me the empowerment of people gaining access to land resources gaining access to that which has been taken away is part of an anti-poverty programs anti-poverty is predicated on what the precious Dignity of Everyday People everyday people have been crushed now this is true for workers across the board but workers have various slices indigenous peoples as workers have a history of s colonialism have a history of vicious and violent genocidal attack and so forth white workers have exploitation but they don't have Jim Crow or slavery as a backdrop but we're talking about the democratization and democratization is about what the empowerment of ordinary people so they choose to shape their Destinies and live lives of De of of dignity at the moment the major impediment for that are organized greed at the top tied to private property obsessed with private profit making so that the needs of Ordinary People is is an afterthought the primary priority is profit and that for me as a Christian that's that's spiritual idolatry I mean that's idolatry at the highest level level to worship false gods and not to be able to muster the the capacity to see other human beings as human beings and to support them in that regard uh and so so that I I I I I think the larger framework now part of our platform of course I won't wear in all the platforms trying to deal with fossil fuel companies and their greed and nationalize what it means to democratize and nationalize these various Industries that are running a muck whose greed is running a muck trying to shut down Willow projects and cancer alleys and cop cities mean we we can go into all of the the details of our platform but what sits at the very center and you and sister Jen have been so wonderful as you always are what sits at the very center is this conception of what it means to be human what it means to have a certain kind of quality Soul craft and how that's always embedded in family community one's tradition well Dr Wes uh thank you so much for joining us again um it was wonderful to have you do you uh where can people find your work how can they uh plug into your campaign yes is Cornell West 20 24.com corn w2024 donation volunteers variety of different things and I am going to make my way to Minnesota brother I haven't forgotten about I know we talked about that I'm gonna make my way absolutely and sister Jen God bless you it's a blessing to be in conversation with you though

Channel: The Red Nation

Views: 118,129

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Id: bOAnpRK6Clo

Length: 52min 51sec (3171 seconds)

Published: Mon Jan 08 2024