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In reply to the discussion: If YOU have issues with Cornel West-well, what are they? [View all]pnwmom
(108,977 posts)From his high horse in Princeton he spits out vitriol. He deserved the take-down.
http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2015/04/22/the-sad-but-self-inflicted-fall-of-cornel-west.html
Dyson starts off by describing Wests animus toward the president as a love that has turned into a hatred so severe that it would make the heavens shudder. He mentions the times when West called Obama a Rockefeller Republican in blackface, on Democracy Now! and a brown-faced Clinton in Salon magazine. He discusses a moment when West told him, Dyson, that he does not respect the brother at all, referring to Obama. All this in the first two paragraphs.
As the piece winds its way to the conclusion that solidifies the end of their personal and professional relationship, a narrative of West emerges as a man of supreme intellect who thought that he had reached the pinnacle of African-American thought. West had even gone so far as to start referring to himself as a prophet. He believed that he was the voice that the black community would run to when in need of clarity. Dyson was one of those voices early on, so Wests fall from grace in his eyes is all the more striking. He was a self-anointed prophet, who has publicly lost one of his most significant disciples and a friend.
Apparently, it was the release of Race Matters in the mid-90s that placed West at the pinnacle, and he intended on staying there for life. He did not need to publish new, thought-provoking works. His lack of output was disappointing, and so were his verbal attacks toward others in the black community, especially at MSNBC contributor and professor Melissa Harris-Perry.
Still, he potentially could have recovered from both of these errors. Yet he decided to rest on his laurels from here to eternity, and as he did so, time, unbeknownst to him, began passing him by. When Obama showed up, and politely challenged Wests idyllic place at the summit, West responded venomously to challenge this young, brash usurper.
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