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Street roots
Oct. 26, 2012
A voice in the wilderness
Street Roots ’ sister paper Spare Change News
spends an evening with Cornel West
BY REV. OSAGYEFO SEKOU
S T R E E T N E W S S E R V IC E
u TT
come to you tonight with a heavy
heart,” Cornel West began. “I just
-M. buried my grandmother,” he
continued at the crowd gathered at West
Park Presbyterian Church, which caused a
collective “ahhh.” Dr. West canceled a
number of speaking engagements in early
March, pausing his whirlwind schedule to
deliver the eulogy for Rosie Bais. She was
not his biological grandmother but the only
grandmother he had known.
“It was the hardest thing I have ever had
to do, second only to burying my father,”
West reflected with a tear in his eye. Earlier
in the green room of upper-west side activist
church, West shared with the Bob Brasher,
pastor of West Park and few others that his
biological maternal grandmother died on the
steps of a Texas hospital in the Jim Crow
South. Staring into the distance, “The racist
doctors refused to see her and she died
from what began as a toothache.”
Rocking back forth on his heels, his hands
in the vest pockets of his classic three-piece
suit, he shook and hung his head. It seems
that the specter of racism has followed West
most of his life in very direct ways. West’s
great uncle was lynched in Texas and
wrapped in the American flag. This
murderous act fortified the young Cornel
West. Haunted by the image of his forebear
as “Strange Fruit,” West refused to salute
the American flag in the third grade. This
childhood act of defiance warranted a slap
from his teacher, to which West responded
w ith a “Jo e F ra z ie r c o u n te rp u n c h .” His
brother, Cliff, joined the melee. West was
subsequently expelled. Sensing that her son
was not a delinquent but rather an
unchallenged intellect, his mother, Irene, a
veteran teacher, requested an IQ test. Her
strong willed son scored 160 points on the
IQ test and landed in a gifted program in the
“vanilla side of town”.
West would go on to excel as a track star,
and also held first chair in violin at John F.
Kennedy High School in Sacramento, Calif.
He arrived at Harvard University at the age
of 16, and soon found himself confronting
race. After a white female student was
sexually assaulted on campus, West and a
few of his classmates where hauled in by the
Cambridge Police as suspects. Although the
police officer urged her to name West and
the others as her attackers, she told the
truth and West was released. “The white
sister saved our lives,” West recalled.
Hanging on every word, the crowd
listened, intently. Drawing closer to the
microphone West whispered, “If you love
poor people, you cannot be indifferent to
their suffering.” Then he thundered,
“Justice is what love looks like in public!”
and the crowd exploded in applause.
Between parties, protest and thwarted
imprisonment, West managed to graduate
from Harvard in three years with a degree
in Near Eastern Studies. Though he was the
first African American to graduate with a
PhD in Philosophy from Princeton
University, West maintained a deep
connection to “those on the ground,”
arguably because he has experienced the
treatment of those without privilege. Driving
to Williams College to teach philosophy, he
was pulled over and taken into the police
station on suspicion of being a drug dealer.
When he told the arresting officer that he
was a professor of philosophy, the officer
responded, “Yeah, nigger, I am a flying nun.”
After the West Park talk, West walked
down the street to dinner and was
approached by a shabby dressed man,
stumbling a bit with slurred speech. “Dr.
West”, he calls out of his stupor. “My
brother,” West says with a big smile.
Flinging hisr arms wide open and gave the
apparently homeless man a big bear hug.
Without a missing a beat, West asked the
brother his name and promptly asked,
“What do you need?”
“Gary” began to explain his situation.
Before he could finish his supplication, West
reached into his pocket never losing eye
contact and gave Gary a crisp 100-dollar bill.
Samuel Weems, longtime vendor and board
member of the Homeless Empowerment
Project (the publisher of Spare Change
News) pointed out West’s interaction with
“Gary” was typical. During his time as a
professor at Harvard, West was known to
purchase Spare Change News and offer help
to our vendors. “He always purchased the
paper and developed relationships with the
vendors,” Weems fondly remembered.
At dinner, a nervous graduate student
approached West to ask his advice on a
music research project and a Middle
Eastern waiter thanked him for speaking out
in support of the Arab spring. In both
instances, West extended his gratitude to
them first, then dispensed whatever
knowledge that would aid them in their
individual endeavors.
Over a filet mignon, French fries, and a
side of sauteed spinach, West launched into
a critique of the Obama administration:
“The brother (President Obama) has been
such a disappointment.” West has raised
Obama supporter’s ire with his
characterizations of the president as “black
mascot of Wall Street.” Continuing his
stinging summation, “Obama has not said a
mumbling word about poverty.” West has
been unrelenting in his displeasure with
president’s economic advisers, particularly
his old Harvard nemesis, Larry Summers.
West’s departure for Harvard was highly
publicized. The spat between Summers and
West concerning West is nonacademic work,
two spoken word CDs and his campaign
stops for Rev. A1 Sharpton. Ironically, West
has had another public fallout with A1
Sharpton. For West, it is a matter of
principle in each of these tense
JESUIT
engagements. West pointed out, “I have
known Sharpton for 30 years. He is a long
distance runner in the freedom struggle. I
am just concerned that he is too close to the
a d m in istratio n to b rin g a c ritiq u e of th e
president’s silence on poverty.” And
Summer, the former Harvard president,
according to West does not have a history of
working on the behalf of poor people.
West and longtime collaborator, Tavis
Smiley embarked on a poverty tour last year.
Their book, “The Rich and The Rest of Us”
is a reflection on their tour from a Native
American reservation to economically
depressed Detroit. Originally, West and
Smiley were approached by a major
publishing house that would chronological
their Tocquevillian expedition. The
publisher had one cavet, no passion.
“They wanted us to just present the facts
but no critique,” West recounted after taking
a bite of his medium rare steak. Rather than
compromising their passion for the subject
at hand, they published an impassioned
book through Smiley Books and will be
embarking on a Poverty Tour 2.0. Focusing
their second tour on key swing states, West
and Smiley hope to force Governor Romney
and President Obama to talk about their
plans to end poverty in the world’s richest
nation.
During the hour or so late night dinner,
West seamlessly moved from the philosophy
of Jean-Paul Sartre, liberation theology, the
crisis in American left, and personal
Street Roots is a proud
partner with Jesuit
Volunteer Corps Northwest
and Americorps.
M
ÌÌR l i T l l IIU
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commitments to the struggle for justice.
Before arriving at West Park, West spent
most of the afternoon in federal court with
Pulitzer Prize winning journalist Chris
Hedges. West, Hedges, noted critic of U.S.
foreign policy Noam Chomsky, feminist
activist Naomi Wolf, and Daniel Ellsberg,
former military analyst who the Pentagon
Papers, are plaintiffs in the case against the
Obama administration’s passage of the
National Defense Authorization Act.
The controversial law allows the U.S.
government to detain U.S. citizens
indefinitely if they are believed to be
supports of terrorist organizations. West and
Hedges argue that the term “terrorist” is
too ambiguous and could be used against
activist citizens who support groups branded
as threats to the state because of their
activism.
Thinking retroactively, West told the West
Park crowd that he could have been locked
up indefinitely because he supported Nelson
Mandela and his organization, the ANC.
Both Mandela and the ANC were labeled
“terrorist” by the United Stated government
during the anti-apartheid struggle.
When asked how is has stayed true to his
sense of calling in the midst of intense
criticism and at times demonization, West,
took a deep breath a let out a laugh,
“Brother, I am just a voice in the
wilderness.”