LA Times Gives Cornel West's Heavy Breathing More Air

Glen Beck Explains Obama

We are not huge fans of race hustlers, having grown up in NYC in the 1980's during Al Sharpton's rabble rousing apex. He has since mellowed, though at the time his track suit and shock of hair was annoyingly all over the local news. Since then others have replaced him, including Professor Cornel West, who we have always disliked. Self appointed big idea people (Newt Gingrich) or intellectuals (West) are only good as their product, and West in particular always seemed to be saying an awful lot, in spirited pseudo-minister cadence and style, with a substance content approaching that of pork in a can of pork and beans.

In recent months he has been lashing out at Obama for not being appropriately focused on black issues, and various people, including other black academics have agreed with or disputed the accusation. Commentary had a piece a few months back taking Cornel to task, and the today's Los Angeles Times does an inconclusive write-up of the debate, adding this bizarre thought point into the mix:

The real problem with the assimilation-versus-nationalism battle is that it isn't really a battle anymore because black leaders, whatever philosophy they espouse these days, rarely put black interests first. Harold Cruse warned about this in his classic 1967 book, "The Crisis of the Negro Intellectual." In Cruse's view, the crisis then was a direct result of the black intelligentsia repeatedly abdicating its responsibility to assess black social conditions and craft action agendas entirely unique to America's racial history. As long as it deferred to integrationist approaches that didn't primarily have blacks' interests in mind, Cruse said, black people would always be reduced to reacting and protesting crises in the future. West's broadside of Obama is such a protest, though in it is a hope that a black man who is in a historic position to address the latest crisis will find it in his conscience to do so.

(LA Times)

The above seems particularly wrong, and further implies that black needs are so uniquely divergent from the standard population that one must some how carve out a microscopic focus on blacks alone. The fact remains that if you are trying to do something as monumental as reform the health care system, or bring troops home from war, you are in fact doing quite a bit for blacks.

Or, when you are making or supporting policy (TARP) that sustains our banking system, you are in fact helping black people, who will invariably fare far worse under a collapsed or strictly bare bones money system than your broader population of whites or Asians. Health care in itself is such a comprehensive influence on daily well being, impacting blacks more than any other group. It just so happens that there are enough people in the wider population without affordable or appropriate care as well, masking the high utility to the black population.

Debates between blacks always happen when one aggrieved party feels like the other is not properly, face it, black enough in outward symbolism. The assumption in the back of the mind is that when a black person gets into office, or some position of influence, they will bring others along and "share the spoils" (publicity, influence, prestige, money), regardless of any deeper philosophical affinity. Cornel West is not being invited into the White House to discuss policy, or turned to as a wise counselor. Obama is not racing out to symposiums or interviews with specifically black show hosts (like Tavis Smiley), and this does not sit well with those who want to appear to be in proximity to power and peacock an artificial influence.

Obama has the power and influence. Granted its constantly under attack by the united forces of Republicans who are playing a dangerous game of stall and character assassination, but Obama has the power and his own vision. In the end there are always people trying to pull you back, change your focus, or create drama while ignoring what you are actually achieving.