This 2010 photo of President Obama and Cornel West says it all

[ProSense]

President Obama shakes hands with Princeton
University professor Cornel West after speaking at
the National Urban League’s 100th Anniversary
Convention in Washington in July 2010.

<...>

“I think my dear brother Barack Obama has a certain fear of free black men,” West says. “It’s understandable. As a young brother who grows up in a white context, brilliant African father, he’s 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. When he meets an independent black brother, it is frightening. And that’s true for a white brother. When you get a white brother who meets a free, independent black man, they got to be mature to really embrace fully what the brother is saying to them. It’s a tension, given the history. It can be overcome. Obama, coming out of Kansas influence, white, loving grandparents, coming out of Hawaii and Indonesia, when he meets these independent black folk who have a history of slavery, Jim Crow, Jane Crow and so on, he is very apprehensive. He has a certain rootlessness, a deracination. It is understandable.

“He feels most comfortable with upper middle-class white and Jewish men who consider themselves very smart, very savvy and very effective in getting what they want,” he says. “He’s got two homes. He has got his family and whatever challenges go on there, and this other home. Larry Summers blows his mind because he’s so smart. He’s got Establishment connections. He’s embracing me. It is this smartness, this truncated brilliance, that titillates and stimulates brother Barack and makes him feel at home. That is very sad for me.

link

Ignore the disgusting drivel. It's Obama fault because West was "misled."

OMG!

:rofl:

[FrenchieCat]

1. This is very sad for Cornel West to say.....

Obama is exactly what any independent Black man would want to represent...Himself!
and one who sleeps with Michelle Obama every night....
and I suspect that is who he feels most comfortable with.

Guess that's more of that "Not Black enough" drivel that was screamed out by Hillary supporters
early on in 2007!

[ProSense]

2. It's

disgusting, and West statements have no place in political discourse. His psychoanalyses is not a substitute for policy disagreements.

[FrenchieCat]

3. Well folks will buy West's books, and that, at the end of the day

is very important! So there's that.

[ProSense]

4. Motivation

found!!!

Oh my!


:rofl:

[ZombieHorde]

27. "His psychoanalyses is not a substitute for policy disagreements."

Don't you see you are doing the same here?

[Stinky The Clown]

6. That's an awful thing to say

"Guess that's more of that "Not Black enough" drivel that was screamed out by Hillary supporters
early on in 2007!"

It also demonstrates what appears to me to be unresolved bitterness. It is also enormously unhelpful if you wish for some party unity - which is sorely lacking.

And before you go on, you know I was an Obama supporter. I recall well your welcoming me to the fold.

[demosincebirth]

5. I would never have thought that West would bring up race in this way. Always thought

he was outspoken, but never like this. It tells me that he doesn't think Obama is black enough for him.

[Kahuna]

11. West lives in a time warp. I knew many of his mentality back in the 60s

and 70s. Believe it or not, Buster Soares used to be like him.....AS A TEENAGER! West needs to grow up and deal with the status of AA's in today's world, not the world of the 60s and 70s.

[demosincebirth]

41. He's stall ravishing in the Panther philosophy of the sixties

[Kahuna]

42. Yep. Those guys used to hang out in my neighborhood in Newark

back in the day. Stokey, Rap...Baraka...All of them...

[PurityOfEssence]

7. To YOU. Says it to YOU.

West is still beseeching, and Obama is chiding.

To me, this shows West as still being communicative, while Obama is bullying him.

Hero worship is a pitiful thing: it's ritualized subservience, and vents its anger at those who dare to differ.

Shame on the enablers, and shout-downs to silence dissent won't quell the inconvenient echoes in one's head.

Somehow the self-proclaimed virtue of backing Obama come what may grants the stalwarts immunity to reality. The giddy joy of the acolytes comes at the expense of the rest of the world.

Prince Charming rides on a horse of the privileged.

[Electric Monk]

8. I think this thread is incomplete without this other link too

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_mesg&forum=439&topic_id=1113516&mesg_id=1113516

[Hissyspit]

9. Hunh?

[Cali_Democrat]

10. What exactly is this photo supposed to prove?

[boston bean]

12. I don't get it either..

[ecstatic]

13. For one thing, he comes across as "fake"

Clambering to get Obama's handshake while talking trash behind the scenes. CW's quote says it all--his problem with Pres. Obama goes far beyond anything that Obama did or didn't do while in office.

[Fumesucker]

14. Practically everyone I know thinks Obama comes across as "fake"..

I live in the deep South surrounded by wingnuts, every single one of them thinks Obama is a fake, they would look at this photo and see Obama as the fake one.

The photo is a Rorschach test, you get out of it whatever you brought to it.

[ecstatic]

16. There's nothing Rorschach about it. CW is clearly struggling

to get attention from Obama. Nothing Rorschach about CW's disgusting quote either.

[Fumesucker]

20. So, unlike everyone else, your perception of reality isn't filtered through your biases?

We all are primed to see what we wish to see, like I said, practically everyone around me thinks Obama is a huge fake, they see what they wish to see.

[liberallunatic]

29. According to the article referenced it was Obama that

came to West to complain about him saying Obama was not a liberal after that speech. :shrug:

""Obama and West’s last personal contact took place a year ago at a gathering of the Urban League when, he says, Obama “cussed me out.” Obama, after his address, which promoted his administration’s championing of charter schools, approached West, who was seated in the front row.

“He makes a bee line to me right after the talk, in front of everybody,” West says. “He just lets me have it. He says, ‘You ought to be ashamed of yourself, saying I’m not a progressive. Is that the best you can do? Who do you think you are?’ I smiled. I shook his hand. ""

[ProSense]

18. It

proves Cornel West's lastest screed makes him look like a fool.

If you don't agree, keep scratching your head.

[Cali_Democrat]

26. "It proves Cornel West's lastest screed makes him look like a fool"

How does the picture prove that? I'm not saying that I agree or disagree with you, but I wanna see what you're seeing. All I see is a picture of West shaking Obama's hand.

[Name removed]

31. Deleted message

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[ProSense]

32. Please

spare me the self-righteous bullshit.

The nation wasn't in a crisis when West supported Nader in 2000.

[RainDog]

33. please

spare me the bullshit, period.

Nader didn't cause Democrats to lose the election b/c Gore won. The NYTimes indicated this after the fact.

If Gore had fought against the power grab instead of giving up, we wouldn't be in this position today.

If you think it's self-righteous to care about the poor and middle class - well, that speaks volumes about you, doesn't it?

[ProSense]

34. "Nader didn't cause Democrats to lose the election b/c Gore won. "

Funny, that you bring that up at the mere mention that West supported Nader.

"If you think it's self-righteous to care about the poor and middle class - well, that speaks volumes about you, doesn't it? "

Defending West's clownish screed is synonymous with caring about the poor and middle class?

Self-righteous defined.

[Name removed]

36. Deleted message

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[ProSense]

40. "back to ignore - you're a waste of time in so many ways. "

:rofl:

[RainDog]

38. just to share one last thought

YOU brought up support for Nader - the implicit criticism in YOU bringing that up is the claim that those who supported Nader cost democrats the election.

then you try to claim that acknowledging this history is somehow unrelated to you bringing it up. The logical fallacy in your attempt to create a rejoinder is funny - funny in that you have absolutely NOTHING but an attempt to smear someone has "self-righteous" when they point out class issues in this nation.

My post noted that West has been speaking about the issue of the poor and middle class for sometime - not just in this one OP that you posted.

But, yes, West is calling Obama to account from a position of someone who has spoken for those who have not had a voice at the table when this nation makes decisions. He has done this repeatedly. Because Democrats have been willing to compromise with Republicans concerning the basic common good that impacts the poor and middle class repeatedly.

Your attempt to call this self-righteous is an attempt to deflect from the real issues that EVERYONE from Krugman to Reich to every major newspaper of note has recognized is a problem impacting the poor and middle class in this nation.

So, what you call self-righteous is what others call speaking truth to power.

However, I know it's your job or mission or whatever to try to undermine anyone who notes the hypocrisy in the Democratic Party - I just wanted to tell you you're not very good at it.

[woo me with science]

39. Well said. nt

[mmonk]

15. I was too. So I guess it's my fault.

Nothing is ever laid at the door of Oval Office.

[These Eyes]

17. He sounds like a fool...

I guess this is why he's not a member of the president's inner circle -- Obama is scared of free black men. What utter bs.

[ProSense]

19. Seriously

who the hell buys that drivel? Then again, claiming to have been fooled by Obama may be a clue.

[These Eyes]

21. Oh, wait a minute!...

I thought this picture was taken during the campaign. I didn't realize it is from last year. He pressed his way through the crowd to shake hands with the man by whom he says he's been fooled, tricked, hoodwinked, bamboozled! :rofl:

[Solomon]

22. What the hell has Cornel West ever done but talk shit?

Even Al Sharpton put him in his place. "i was out there marching, where were you"?

Does West have a degree in psychoanalysis? No. What bullshit.

He's going to ruin what little reputation he had stubbing his toe on Obama.

Let me be the psychoanalyst. Cornel West is jealous as hell.

[mfcorey1]

23. Not a big fan of Cornel West. nt

[phleshdef]

24. Cornel West, from that statement, is just another type of racist altogether.

Aside from the fact that he can't talk about the simplest thing without forcing others to endure his painful speechifying, he is basically calling Barack Obama an uncle Tom.

[cali]

25. what drivel.

West is full of shit.

[liberallunatic]

28. According to Dr West that is a photo of Obama

asking how dare West say Obama is not a liberal.

So I'm not sure what "says it all" means. From my perspective it says Obama does not like to take any criticism, true or not.

[truth2power]

30. There's already a thread on this. n/t

[ProSense]

35. What to Think about Cornel West....

What to Think about Cornel West....

<...>

This offends and self-immolates on so many levels

—not least in its flattening of Barack Obama’s own biography, Michelle Obama’s life experience, and more. I could do without the “upper middle-class white and Jewish” bit, too.

President Obama merits legitimate criticism for his failure to craft a more progressive populist message, and for his inability at specific moments to advance a liberal agenda larger than himself. Our president is a liberal, cautious, consensus-oriented strategic politician. He was bequeathed a daunting set of foreign and domestic crises. He has imperfectly navigated some of these crises. He has still earned our support in the face of implacable opposition from Republicans and from entrenched economic interests. Then there’s the fact that President Obama spent much of his first two years enacting near-universal health coverage for 32 million Americans, millions of whom are people of color.

The most foolish and poisonous way to pursue these issues is to present oneself as the self-appointed guardian of black authenticity. I’ll take that back. The one more foolish and poisonous thing is to believe that you can peer into a complicated public person’s mind and heart to make facile pronouncements as Professor West does.

I would have thought that a conspicuously pampered Class of 1943 Princeton University Professor would be well-positioned to understand the perils of such pronouncements. Apparently not.

<...>

[Name removed]

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