Bernie kicking off his convention speech by attacking Third Way. "It represents the corporate wing..

[Cha]

81. West apparently didn't ever think

President Obama did enough and resorted to calling him racist names.

There was something about he didn't get invited to the Inauguration, either. Also, President Obama couldn't go to the State of the Black Union and offered Michelle to go in his place but Smiley said "No".

Cornel West and Tavis Smiley do a disservice to African Americans

That is why it pains me to say that Smiley and West have let me down. Sure, I'm not really anyone important to them, but I represent a generation of African-American men who looked up to West and Smiley – only to see them damage their legacies by engaging in embarrassing public roasts of President Obama.

West has called Obama a "Rockefeller Republican in blackface" and both recently criticized Al Sharpton's support of the president as an example of him being "on the Obama's plantation". These inflammatory remarks only discredit whatever valid criticisms Smiley and West may have about how President Obama has conducted himself over the past five years. And that's a shame because the two men would otherwise have so much to offer the country as true intellectuals.

These comments are made only more disappointing because they seem to come from a place of personal disdain, more than any desire to push an intelligent discussion. West has gone on record saying his initial rift with President Obama came from the fact that he couldn't get tickets for his family to go to the inauguration. Smiley threw a tantrum in 2008 when President Obama couldn't make his State of the Black Union event (also saying "no thanks" to a proposal to have Michelle Obama come in his place).

These two shots at the Smiley and West egos inform their rhetoric about the president, thrusting their "criticism" into the territory of "bashing". Seriously, one of the foremost philosophers of our time has been insulting the leader of the free world because he didn't get a "hook-up"? Is that what's really important here?

https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2013/jul/26/cornel-west-tavis-smiley-disservice-african-americans

Me