Ask Princeton University’s Dr. Cornel West about his views on Black History Month, and somehow the conversation ends up with a sharp critique of the Obama Administration.
“Carter G. Woodson and others fought the vicious terrorism of Jim and Jane Crow,” says West. “But in the age of Obama, Black History Month has the potential of being a waggish march from slave house to White House. The rich Black prophetic tradition is more and more silenced and the weak and vulnerable are pushed to the margins.”
Come November, West will vote for Obama, but he says that he won’t stump for him at 65 events as he did in 2008.
“Barack Obama is so much better than the Republicans. So, in that sense I want him to win,” says West. “But if he continues to hang out with Tim Geithner and company, I am going to tell the truth about him and remain a serious critic.”
That kind of rhetoric frustrates some of Obama’s most loyal supporters who simply wish that the Princeton University professor would remain quiet.
But that’s not going to happen. It’s not West’s style.
For more than three decades, the 58-year-old philosopher has combined his work in the academy with a grassroots form of activism, which West views as continuing the Black prophetic tradition established by historical forerunners of the modern day civil rights movement. West’s work has taken him into some of the nation’s most elite classrooms and into some of the most impoverished parts of the country advocating on behalf of the most vulnerable.
