Get Ready, DU: Cornel West Speaking in the "Prophetic Tradition"

[ancianita]

Highlights on "Niggerization," Revolution, Unity, Honesty, Leadership, Poverty

DU must recognize.

Please take the time to understand the underpinnings of both black and white Democratic Socialism that brings Bernie Sanders and Cornel West together.

For the brothers who spoke so eloquently...resilience, resistance...I could see Nat Turner and John Brown...and 220 rebellions the night that Martin Luther King was shot down like a dog one year after he gave his Beyond Vietnam speech to bring poor people together, to bring a critique to bear on the viciousness of American imperialism.

Forty years later we come back to commemorate this struggle against the historical backdrop of a people who've been so terrorized, traumatized and stigmatized that we've been taught to be scared, intimidated, always afraid, distrustful ... and disrespectful of one anothe

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But the Atticus rebellion was a countermove of that direction...I call it the "niggerization" of a people -- not just black people because America been niggerized since 9/11. When you're niggerized, you're unsafe, unprotected, subject to random violence, hated for who you are. You become so scared that you defer to the powers that be and you're willing to consent to your own domination.

And that's the history of black people in America... Anytime you look the terror in the face and you deal with the trauma -- even if all you could do was sing a song... in 1971 you had a whole context ... that same year... but the counterrevolution is winning!....

...it started on the chocolate side of town but it spilled over into the vanilla side and the yellow side and the brown side, too...oh yes, you got to have the unity but you got to be honest about how the powers that be dividing and conquering.

In this revolutionary moment when the counterrevolution is winning...now it's coming back...and the young people are hungry and thirsty but the young people are thirsty for truth...and the problem is that most of our leaders have either sold out, caved in, gave up; they don't want to tell people the truth. They're too concerned about their careers. They're too concerned about success. Too concerned about just winning the next election. Or their status.

In l971 the Attica brothers told the truth. But they weren't the only ones. You had a whole cacophony of voices telling the truth! ... the condition of Truth is to allow suffering to speak! You don't talk about poverty, you're not telling the truth. You're not talking about working people you can push against the wall when corporate profit's high, you're not telling the truth. If you're not talking about the criminal activity on Wall St. and not one person gone to jail yet, you're not telling the truth!

The only thing that will keep you going is you better have some love in your heart for The People...the long distance runner got enough love in their hearts to talk about The People, about poverty, about suffering, about struggle and be able to look...not just presidents...to tell their truth

We gone have a New Wave...of truth telling...witness bearing...we gone teach the younger generation that these brothers didn't struggle in vain just like John Brown, Nat Turner, Marcus Garvey and Martin King...and we shall see what happens...we might get crushed, too, but you know what? Then you just go down swinging like Ella Fitzgerald and Muhammed Ali!