The right has Clarence Thomas, the left has Cornell West (now), neither care that these men

[La Lioness Priyanka]

do not philosophically or morally represent the vast majority of black people and black opinions.

I find the excuse from both sides to be very similar (he doesn't fall in line so they hate him, they don't like free thinkers, they cannot handle criticism of Obama etc.)

Fascinating.

(and yeah, I liked West enough till he started sounding jealous of Obama and kinda unhinged)

[leftofcool]

1. He became unhinged when he didn't get the "invite"

[La Lioness Priyanka]

2. yeah. which is really a silly reason to make insane attacks on the first black President

i have criticized Obama plenty, but West's criticism is nutty

[leftofcool]

3. I am just thankful he didn't come out and support Hillary.

[La Lioness Priyanka]

4. oh me too. that would be a weird situation.

[brush]

6. Hillary would have disavowed his support. She has better political instincts than Sanders . . .

and is actually in touch with the AA community.

Sanders, not so much. He didn't know of the dislike of West in the AA community when West was bought on as a surrogate.

The thing I dislike even more than that is Sanders selecting him to be on the platform committee of the Democratic Party, knowing full well by now his unpopularity in the AA community and his very public animosity towards the head of the Democratic Party, President Obama.

That seems to be a direct swipe at the head of the very party he has joined.

[bettyellen]

18. Sanders didn't know Mike Brown was headed to college....

Or that you can go to jail for not paying traffic fines. He thinks supporting no restrictions at all for abortion up till the ninth month is actually a good thing. He's never delved into our civil rights issues. He's all about money.

[Hekate]

23. BS is really good at direct swipes, aka biting the hand that feeds you

[uponit7771]

39. +1

[JustAnotherGen]

5. Good point

[Zen Democrat]

7. Brother Cornell fell under the spell of Tavis Smiley, who was furious at being shut-out.

He wanted a White House job. As a result he went on a scorched Earth campaign against Obama for not fighting poverty with the required zeal.

Who knows what Obama could have done with a less seditionist opposition party.

[LanternWaste]

8. West has called Pres. Obama a "political minstrel", a “Rockefeller Republican in blackface”

West has called Pres. Obama a "political minstrel", a “Rockefeller Republican in blackface” and taunted him as a “brown-faced Clinton.”

None of these are in fact, valid criticisms against the President as a recent GD post implies (http://www.democraticunderground.com/10027853118); they are however, vulgar attacks against the character of Pres. Obama. And in that same GD post, we're instructed that merely observing as much means that we are not progressives, and criticism of Prof. West implies bigotry.

[kwassa]

9. Cornel West also bears a resemblence to Donald Trump ....

in his over-the-top and wildly inaccurate insults directed at people who disagree with him.

[ismnotwasm]

10. This really, really bothers me

“I think my dear brother Barack Obama has a certain fear of free black men,” West says. “It’s understandable. As a young brother who grows up in a white context, brilliant African father, he’s always had to fear being a white man with black skin. All he has known culturally is white. He is just as human as I am, but that is his cultural formation. When he meets an independent black brother, it is frightening. And that’s true for a white brother. When you get a white brother who meets a free, independent black man, they got to be mature to really embrace fully what the brother is saying to them. It’s a tension, given the history. It can be overcome. Obama, coming out of Kansas influence, white, loving grandparents, coming out of Hawaii and Indonesia, when he meets these independent black folk who have a history of slavery, Jim Crow, Jane Crow and so on, he is very apprehensive. He has a certain rootlessness, a deracination. It is understandable.

“He feels most comfortable with upper middle-class white and Jewish men who consider themselves very smart, very savvy and very effective in getting what they want,” he says.

http://www.thepeoplesview.net/main/epeoplesview.net/2011/05/cornel-wests-race-baiting-antisemitic.html

Someone needs to explain to me how this is in any way acceptable. I like--or I liked--West well enough, he reminds me of that kind of prof in college that everyone likes and learns from. But damn this is nasty shit.

[PragmaticLiberal]

19. That line about "being comfortable with Jewish men" is "interesting."

I suspect if anyone in this forum uttered those words we'd be immediately branded as an antisemite.

DU is a trip...

[Number23]

27. "I suspect if anyone in this forum uttered those words we'd be immediately branded as an antisemite.

You noticed that too, huh?? How the cries of anti-Semitism keep getting hurled at this forum and black folks in general?

But Cornell gets a pass on that. Wonder why???

[Hekate]

25. Using the word "deracination" in no way validates this garbage.Hawai'i & Indonesia are hardly white

... environments. Hawai'i I know from growing up on O'ahu as a haole girl. Indonesia -- all I have to do is be moderately educated about Asia.

As for West's crack about Jews -- Jews are just another group of haoles there, and an exceedingly tiny minority. I'm sorry, that crack was just anti-Semitic.

If young Obama was going to be influenced by any particular group it would have been Islanders: Japanese Americans, Chinese Americans, Hawaiians, hapa-haoles... just look at his class photos from Punahou. Just look at who his sister Maya married. Obama could have remained in the Islands and done the same.

Instead it was his white mother who encouraged him to search for his own identity, and to do that he had to travel to the Mainland. Which he did.

"Dear brother West" comes off sounding like an East Coast Ivory Tower elite every time he talks about Barack Obama's upbringing, and to me he always sounds as if he has never even set a toe in the vast Pacific Ocean or given one moment's thought to the many cultures on that side of the globe.

[Number23]

26. That man lost me forever when he said that Obama "fears free black men"

I was done with him after that. DONE. And this was in 2011, YEARS before Sanders ever decided to run for president.

brush made a great comment where he said that it is inconceivable but still possible that Sanders may not have know how despised West was in the black community when he asked him to be a surrogate for his campaign.

But he knows now. And he still chose him to be his representative on the Democratic panel which is a clear slap in the face not only to Obama but to the largely minority voters who voted for him and who have pretty UNIVERSALLY rejected Sanders.

[1StrongBlackMan]

28. Dr. West lost me a couple years before that ... but, yeah.

[uponit7771]

40. +1

[1StrongBlackMan]

11. I've been saying that a while now ...

They use the same excuses and love those guys for the same reasons ... it validates their disparate views, i.e., with the right saying, "What I said CAN'T be racists because ... see ... the Black guy is saying the same thing!" (which USED to be only coming from the right; but, yesterday's discussion (ironically, also about Dr. West, changed that) ... and the left say, "See I told you what is good for me is good for you ... the Black guy just said it!"

[La Lioness Priyanka]

14. meanwhile if i say 'ann coulter' speaks for all white people

people would have a fit

[Jackie Wilson Said]

12. White people use black people to their own end, all the time.

Whether it is as a token or as an example that all are "that way" because this one is.

White people, most, not all, are very insecure about racial issues because they know damn well they have profited from slavery, Jim Crow, continued civil rights disparities, red lining, etc.

[Starry Messenger]

13. His "global George Zimmerman" comment was really fucking awful.

All the other things he said were fucking awful too, but that one sticks with me. The President made a heartfelt address about how Trayvon Martin could have been his son, and Brother West decides to stick it to him with that?

People keep calling this criticism, but all abusive people say that the awful things they say are criticism.

There's a big fight going on on social media about how saying the worst thing possible is a sign of leftist intellectual rigor, but count me the fuck out. There's a big difference between snark and being a complete asshole and gaslighting people about it. West had to know what a remark like that would signify.

[La Lioness Priyanka]

15. reminds me of what Sansa said to Littlefinger about Ramsay

'If you didn’t know, you’re an idiot. If you did know, you’re my enemy.”

can be said about many things to do with Cornell West and picking him to represent Sanders

(although I realize this might sound like gibberish if you dont watch game of thrones)

[Starry Messenger]

16. I do, well put!

[1StrongBlackMan]

17. I don't watch the show; but, I like the expression ...

and it is really appropriate.

[Number23]

41. Big Game of Thrones (and Sansa!) fan here. That quote does speak volumes

And just like Little Prick, I mean Finger... Sanders DOES know about the deals with the devils he's done and he couldn't care less.

The ends justify the means to people like that so if that means you align yourself with a loud-mouthed blowhard who's engaged in some of the most idiotic, counter productive and just plain stupid "criticism" of our black president just so you can say you've got a black guy (or two) on your team, he's shown he is incredibly happy with that.

[forjusticethunders]

20. Ironically Obama already BTFOed these types

with his speech at Howard.

Obama pretty much exposed all the fake leftists for who they are - fake. They care more about scoring points and getting their gotchas in than actual progress. If they REALLY cared about progress, they'd actually make the effort to talk to and communicate with people but nope.

I hate that I have to borrow the term from the right but "virtue-signaling" is pretty much what is going on; they want to PERFORM progressiveness, and when actual marginalized people don't go with the act, especially since these "progressives" are really averse to doing the actual hard work it would take to get socialist legislation on a President's desk (whether that president is Bernie Sanders, Hillary Clinton, Elizabeth Warren or Eugene Debs), they flip out.

[Starry Messenger]

29. I agree, I have to hold back from using that term too.

I call them socialist LARPers instead.

[JI7]

34. they think they are being brave or performing some great activism by posting on a site like this

and attacking Obama or other democrats.

[1StrongBlackMan]

37. It would seem to me ...

saying the worst thing possible is a sign of leftist intellectual rigor, is pretty much the opposite of intellectual rigor ... it is as intellectually rigorous as sticking out one's tongue.

[Starry Messenger]

38. And kind of sociopathic, in a way.

Disagreeing with someone is one thing, but just wholesale attacks from out of nowhere because you think you are "taking a stand" is bizarre to me. I'm sure I've ladled out my share of snark over the years, but I try to not just strafe my side with disproportionate strikes.

[mcar]

21. His ego ran amuck

It's been sad to see.

[La Lioness Priyanka]

22. Agreed

[Number23]

24. Bitter white folks like using both to slam the president and the black community

And these men are both intelligent enough to understand that which is why they don't even pretend to represent black thought or opinion on anything.

It's hilarious to me that Corny's fan base is now almost entirely comprised of angry white "leftists" who keep screaming at everyone that he's the Real Deal even though most black people -- who are the folks that put Cornell on the map and gave him his first and most impassioned audiences -- wouldn't give him the time of day now.

But these folks are absolute masters of denying reality about everything else, so I know no one expects them to see reality on this either.

[1StrongBlackMan]

30. Correction ...

It's hilarious to me that Corny's fan base is now almost entirely comprised of angry white "leftists" who keep screaming at everyone that he's the Real BLACK Deal even though most black people -- who are the folks that put Cornell on the map and gave him his first and most impassioned audiences -- wouldn't give him the time of day now.

And, the "black" is important here ... Don't believe me? DU:Search Cornel West prior to 2008.

[Number23]

31. Oh, I know. He only became the Negro du Jour after he started slamming Obama every time his mouth

fell open. Though some of these folks around here act like he's been their go-to prophet of wisdom forever, it's blatantly obvious that they had no real use for him until then.

[rusty quoin]

32. I think they are completely different.

Ralph Nader may have helped us lose in 2000. Cornell West has said a lot I disagree with. But both of them have worked their lives to improving life for common people.

Clarence made a decision to improve his own life and only that, regardless of his experiences.

I know I don't answer your question, but I can throw away Clarence Thomas, while not throwing away people like Nader an West. They have good hearts.

[La Lioness Priyanka]

33. Lol about nader's heart. He and west may have started

Out as good people but the lack of humility and the desire for applause and adoration has killed a large part of their conscience.

[Cha]

35. Mahalo for this, La Lioness Priyanka~ I just did an OP on cornel west in Hill's Gr.

How Cornel West hurts Bernie Sanders~ This is from Jan 22.. Let's see how much came true..

http://www.democraticunderground.com/1107144721

I started it on January 22.. but then I never posted it.. still had it saved in my email Drafts, though. Ran across it and decided it was the perfect time to Post it.

Now Cornel West is saying that trump and burnie are both authentic.. you cannot make this shite up.
Making him one of the biggest tools on the Planet.. along with his vicious history of hurling ugly racist insults @President Obama.

[geek tragedy]

36. i feel sorry for the people serving on the platform committee with Brother West

Can they find a room big enough for 15 people and his ego and sense of moral superiority?