Hillary Clinton
Related: About this forumBut this is a pissing match—not prophetic witness.
Professor West says that Obama has a certain fear of free black men. But this is a pissing matchnot prophetic witness.
By Melissa Harris-Perry
Take for example Wests ad hominem attack on the presidents racial identity.
I think my dear brother Barack Obama has a certain fear of free black men. Its understandable. As a young brother who grows up in a white context, brilliant African father, hes always had to fear being a white man with black skin. All he has known culturally is white. He is just as human as I am, but that is his cultural formation.
This comment is utter hilarity coming from Cornel West who has spent the bulk of his adulthood living in those deeply rooted, culturally rich, historically important black communities of Cambridge, Massachusetts, and Princeton, New Jersey. And it is hard to see his claim that Obama is most comfortable with upper middle-class white and Jewish men who consider themselves very smart, very savvy and very effective in getting what they as anything other than a classic projection of his own comfortably ensconced life at Harvard and Princeton Universities. Harvard and Princeton are not places that are particularly noted for their liberating history for black men.
http://www.thenation.com/article/cornel-west-v-barack-obama/
I think MHP explains some of the dislike of CW
ismnotwasm
(42,028 posts)That's just nasty.
mercuryblues
(14,562 posts)West said about Obama or the way MHP exposed it?
ismnotwasm
(42,028 posts)I knew--in general-- some of it, but being most comfortable in "white and Jewish" circles? What's West even trying to imply here?
mercuryblues
(14,562 posts)My original comment was MHP explained it nicely. I chuckled and said to myself, that wasn't nice at all. She splayed him out like a large mouth bass.
http://www.thepeoplesview.net/main/epeoplesview.net/2011/05/cornel-wests-race-baiting-antisemitic.html
this article brings up, Obama also grew up in Indonesia and Hawaii, which is 18% white.
If MHP splayed him, Spandan Chakrabarti reeled him in.
ismnotwasm
(42,028 posts)I don't "hate" West, but these types of comments makes him look like a disgusting little man.
TwilightZone
(25,517 posts)The message, however, couldn't be clearer. The bizarre thing is that it seems to be a personal shit-fit he threw because he couldn't get tickets to the inauguration. Wait, what???
I just find it astonishing that Sanders honestly believed that this man belonged on the committee.
It just blows my mind.
BobbyDrake
(2,542 posts)Asking for a friend...
ladym55
(2,577 posts)I notice a Bernie pattern here--personal tantrums and professional victimhood. It's all about me because I'm special and important. If YOU (Barack Obama, Hillary, people who make rules for primaries and caucuses) don't recognize my specialness and importance, I will go out of my way to act like a brat. I will hold my breath until I turn blue.
fleabiscuit
(4,542 posts)mcar
(42,474 posts)George II
(67,782 posts)BlueCaliDem
(15,438 posts)Hekate
(91,042 posts)And because being a scholarship boy at an elite yet incredibly racially diverse school in Honolulu totally imbued young Obama with those values Brother West projects on him.
Has Cornel West ever been anywhere outside his academic bubble on the East Coast? Has he ever even put a toe in the vast Pacific Ocean and contemplated life across those waters?
SharonClark
(10,014 posts)yes, this is sarcasm