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Cornel West
Professor of Religion, Princeton University; Author, Democracy Matters and Race Matters
Answers to Questions from the Audience
Q: How do we start to develop compassion in the next urban generation who live in an environment, a school environment, where they are dehumanized?A: There is a chapter in the book called "The Necessary Engagement with Youth Culture" and it has much to do with some of the ways in which I have attempted to present a danceable education with the CDs, and teach in prisons. One thing is you actually do have a significant amount of compassion among the younger generation. The seeds are already there. The problem is there is not enough reward structure or incentives for them to act on it. So they feel as if to have empathy is to lose, and they are preoccupied with the eleventh commandment, Though shalt not get caught. That's the dominant culture that they are dealing with. You all know the book by David Callahan, The Cheating Culture. Fifty-six percent of high school students say they cheat regularly on exams in order to be successful. They are imitating us. They look at Wall Street, they look at corporate America, and they see getting over by any means.
The compassion is there; the question is whether they are able to act on it in such a way that it is both sustaining and has a real presence over time. There is such a hunger and thirst among so many young folk of all colors. Keep in mind, just three weeks ago we had the largest mass arrests for civic disobedience in the history of New York City. New York City, in at least a European tradition, goes back to Henry Hudson – 1609. (New Amsterdam then, but New York City in 1664 when the British take it over from the Dutch.) This is the largest mass arrests – disproportionately young people. In that sense, young folk actually could be more on the cutting edge than some of us Curtis Mayfield-generation folk, middle aged and older. I have a great hope. I'm not optimistic, but I have great hope for young folk who are willing to cut against the grain.
One of the aims is to make sure they have access to the best of a past, because the degree to which they have no access to a past, they live in an eternal present and the eternal present views the future as just a repetition of the present – which means there are no alternatives to the present. Every step forward is a retrieval of a certain aspect of the past, a certain reading of the past, a story that connects their present to the past; and so in that sense, I actually do have hope.
Q: What forms of organizations are needed for democratic renewal?
A: There are so many different forms. Some are already in place; one of the most important movements now is the anti-sweatshop movement, that deals with some of the deleterious consequences of the dogma of free-market fundamentalism. Where corporate elites often feel like they don't have to be accountable to the workers, they can engage in a whole host of actions that I would view as unethical. And the anti-sweatshop movement; is international. Why? Because corporate power is international. To the degree which labor can become as mobile in this organization as capitalism is in its deployment of resources, you have some attempt to balance the forces.
There are so many others. Struggles around the ecological crisis are very important. There are always struggles against racist abuse, white supremacist abuse – be it police, or bosses; same is true with sexist abuse. The question is trying to have these organizations in our public space with visions and arguments that are widely accessible to fellow citizens. Most Americans have very little sense of the variety of voluntary associations linked to struggles for justice. Mainstream media makes it very difficult for them to gain access. When we are talking about the means of communication, we are talking about capitalist monopolies that make it difficult for certain organizations to gain access. And we have certain individuals who just circulate on television. First show, second show, third show, fourth show – you get so tired of seeing them on TV, well I won't say radio, but….
Q: Besides voting and letter writing to the editor, what is the most important thing we must do? How do we pursue justice?
A: Well there's an individual level, which is always irreducible to the collective level, which is you just try to be a just person. Try to have the courage to speak your views and convictions – and when you see various treatment on the job, you see it in the street, you see it in your family, you try to lovingly and critically say something, so that people don't feel as if your silence and your indifference is a way of condoning what you might find to be downright disgusting. Brother Martin used to say, It's the silence of one's friends that is much more dangerous than the noise of one's foes. Brother Martin was right about that. But that's at the individual level.
I believe one always must be organized, one must be affiliated with organizations and structures that are trying to do things in the name of justice and equality. We don't have enough organized fellow citizens with those kinds of structures. This is not any kind of formula for change overnight, because we are in a long distance run.
This is an ice age we are living in, in terms of sensibilities that make it difficult for those who are concerned about justice to be viewed as in any way hip. That's one of the things I talk about with young folk all the time. When I was coming along in the '60 s and '70 s, it was actually hip to be willing to live and die for a struggle. It was Huey Newton, it was Angela Davis, it was Bobby Seale, it was Martin King, Malcolm X, Fannie Lou Hamer, Sly Stone – they made it hip to want to fight for justice. Sly said, Stand. Everybody said, What are you talking about? Stand, man. Straighten your back up. Whenever you straighten your back up nobody else can ride your back. That's a very important symbolic gesture, even as an artist, whereas these days it's much more hip to get rich or die. It's a materialistic ethos; it's a hedonistic, narcissistic, very narrowly individualistic ethos. That's what hip is. You have to cut against the grain.
Kanye West and some of the other young artists now are radically cutting against that grain. I just had Andre 3000 in my class a couple of months ago from Outkast. He said, I got a political awakening. P. Diddy came in three weeks later, now he's heading Citizen Change. So now you go, Okay Puffy, okay Andre, let's try to make it hip to make the world safe for Martin Luther King Jr. and Fannie Lou Hamer, let's make it real hip. You a real cool sister or brother, any color, if you willing to organize, if you willing to march, if you willing to write, if you're willing to be an artist connected to the kind of thing that Bruce Springsteen and Pearl Jam and the others are doing. I'm going to be joining them next month on tour. Why? Because these are towering artists who are trying to make it hip, primarily in the white youth culture, 'cause I don't think there is going to be too many black folk at those concerts – but I don't know I shouldn't predict, I mean black folk are very heterogeneous.
Q: Where are African-American political leaders?
A: I think there that there is a crisis in leadership across the board, it's a very sad crisis in black leadership because, historically, black leadership has tended to highlight that dogma of white supremacy that spills over to criticizing other dogma and therefore the nation tended to look to black leaders and spokespersons for serious truth telling. That's no longer the case. We have a profound crisis in the black leadership class, partly because they have become so caught up in the political system. It's pretty clear that our political system can be characterized in part as a system of legalized bribery and normalized corruption and bona fide mediocrity. To the degree to which black folk integrated into that corruption, integrated into that bribery – and these are the words of Russell Feingold and John McCain, this is big money in politics and their struggle for reform – they lost the capacity to tell the truth. I'm not saying they sold their souls for a mess of pottage, even though some did. They become so thoroughly compromised they can't speak from their souls. Historically, that's what sustained black people: the singers, the preachers, the political leaders who spoke from their soul. Granted, many ended up getting killed, many ended up getting lynched on trees; they'd rather die than live a lie. Okay, martyrdom is not normative for being a good citizen, but for black folk, for a long time it was if you were going to speak the truth. We no longer have that at the level that we ought to.
The black church is losing its prophetic fervor. They've become more and more forms of market spirituality: Let's make a deal with God's prayers, gospels of prosperity, turn one's wheel of fortune. Pass the CEOs. Walk in the church and see ATMs before you see a cross. This is a major crisis, a spiritual crisis.
The paraphernalia of the empire is what? Power, status, wealth. That's become the benchmark of the grand churches. They want huge churches, they want power and they want wealth. They say, How many on fire for justice? Well what's that? I'm talking about house ownership. There is nothing wrong with owning a house, but it's not what Jesus had in mind at the center of the Gospel: Follow me and I'll get you a house. No, no, no. You got a cross waiting for you; there is blood, not Kool-Aid for you.
Q: So when we turn to America, what is your opinion of "compassionate conservatism"?
A: I believe it's possible to be a conservative and have a certain intellectual integrity and individual decency in terms of articulating principles and ideals that are consistent with what conservatives believe. Conservatives are human beings who are preoccupied with order, hierarchy and privilege for the few at the top. That's what it is to be a conservative. Plato was a great conservative. His genre was democratic and Socratic-lingus, the questioning, but he was a great conservative. What did Plato do? He created a chain of being, of ranking, philosopher-kings at the top, guardians and the rest of them.
Now the Edmund Burkes and Russell Kirks and a whole host of others, these are very important conservative thinkers, because they believe that democrats like myself will lead societies to chaos – because they don't think that the demos have the capacity to think critically and, therefore, they are unruly and they will produce tyranny. That's Plato's indictment of democracy. It's a profound indictment that radical democrats like myself have to wrestle with. Why? Because democracies are prone to corruption, and when the corruption sets in so thick it creates the possibility for tyrants to emerge – because that's the only way order can be restored; that's in part January 1933 in Germany. Hitler was elected by the demos, wasn't he? That tyrant was elected by the people. Why? Because hell had broken loose: inflation, disorder, humiliation, all the various stories that we could tell that generate the possibility of tyranny. So I take the conservative argument seriously, they are plausible; they are not persuasive.
You say "compassionate conservatism," – those who are tied to order, hierarchy and privileges for the few at the top attempting to be compassionate within that framework. When George Bush says "I'm a compassionate conservative," he says: I will acknowledge if Professor West and others point out that 1 percent of the population own 48 percent of the net financial wealth and it's getting worse; I'm not going to tinker with that. I know workers wages have been stagnating and declining, even though profits have been going up and productivity is going up; I'm not going to touch that. I want to be compassionate within that framework. And he can be compassionate at an individual level. I want to make sure there is more charity. That's the best case one can make for a compassionate conservative.
But there is a difference between the conservative that I defined and those like Thrasymachus who Socrates encountered in Plato's Republic, who thinks that might makes right. It's not about principles at all, it's about raw power, it's about force and coercion, exercise that defines what's right. That's not conservatism, that's gangsterism. And we are seeing in the American empire at the highest level, among conservative elites, gangster activity. There is a qualitative difference between an American conservative, that I was defining, and America gangsters at the top. That gangsterism is escalating, because there is no accountability, no answerability, no responsibility. You can steal a billon dollars – nobody takes responsibility. Welfare mother steals a hubcap – put her on the front page; she ought to be responsible. The double standard is overwhelming. The American people see that.
I don't want to equate American conservatism with gangsterism, I want to make a distinction and I want to say we are living in a moment now where the gangsterism and the nihilism is escalating. Even conservatives of integrity and principle are critical of the gangsterism. Because people with principles, whoever you are, are critical of gangsterism. I debate Pat Buchanan now, and he has had all kind of xenophobia shot through his work for the last 30 years, but he is a bona fide conservative, he is a true believer; that's why he can't stand the Bush administration. He said, You're giving conservatism a bad name, you're acting like gangsters. They said, Pat go back to your radio show; that's why you're not in politics anymore.
Q: I listened to an interview today; your comments bordered on anti-Semitic in regards to the justification for a Jewish state of Israel. Comment, please.
A: I appreciate this question, because I think we have to hit this head on in terms of this very delicate issue of the Israeli/Palestinian question. The term anti-Semitism is thrown around all the time; sometimes it holds, other times it is used to trump serious conversation. I have a chapter in this book that calls for democratic identities in the Islamic world and democratic identities in the Jewish world and talks explicitly about, on the one hand the need for the security of hated and despised people like Jews – for 2,000 years as they jumped out of the burning buildings in Europe and landed on the backs of Arabs in the Middle East, and either had the choice of coexisting with them or subordinating them. Efforts to coexist sometimes were made, the result now is what? Security of Israel: precious, crucial, indispensable – but there can never be security of any people as long as you are occupying and subjugating a people. What I call for is: How do we become pro-justice in such a way that we understand the crucial and, in some ways, even distinctive concern for the security of such a hated and despised people – Jews in the world – and connect that security to hearing the cries of justice of Palestinians?
Talk seriously about what it means to create an international force between two particular nation-state entities, to ensure both security on the one hand and justice on the other, because the result now is neither security for Israel nor justice for the Palestinians. Not enough people want to engage in parrhesia about it; you can't even have a serious discussion in America, because as soon as you begin to criticize some of the vicious, repressive policies of Sharon, you are viewed as anti-Semitic. You say, No, I don't like repressive policies of anybody. If black folk were doing that to the white folk, I'd be critical of the black folk, because I have moral content of what I'm talking about, you see.
How does one have a discussion of that? It's going to take a good while; there is no doubt about that. It's an issue that one has, sooner or later, to wrestle with. With charges of anti-Semitism or not, one will persist. The irony is, I would argue that in the long run, those of us who are fundamentally opposed to all forms of bigotry – anti-Jewish hatred, anti-Arab hatred – are the true allies of fighting against anti-Semitism. To the degree to which anti-Semitism is prematurely invoked to trump conversation, it actually contributes to an anti-Semitism. This is especially true in relation to the Islamic gangster activity. Their claim is: America is tendentious when it comes to the Israeli/Palestinian situation. They don't really believe that a Palestinian baby has the same value as an Israeli baby, and that is true in U.S. foreign policy. That has been clearly articulated in the actions.
This is just a beginning of an answer to that. My own work with Tikkun and Rabbi Michael Lerner and Sister Susannah Heschel, the daughter of the great Rabbi Abraham Joshua Heschel, is part and parcel of this pro-justice, which in the end is actually simultaneously pro-Israel and pro-Palestine, though it's very difficult to discern at the moment because the polarization is so intense and the suffering is so overwhelming on both sides.
Q: Democracy hasn't existed without slavery, so how will it exist without it and what can take its place?
A: Democracy is created by the demos, by what Sly Stone called "everyday people." Democracy is everyday people taking back the power in the face of elite abuse of power. That's what democracy is. In Greece it took the form of peasants who made themselves into citizens. But it was predicated on slavery at home, imperialism abroad, patriarchal households. I do not believe there is such a thing as a perfect democracy; that's like saying that there is a perfect jazz rendition. Well, "A Love Supreme" that Coltrane did in the studio in '65 is perfect. You didn't hear him play it in San Francisco 1965; it's changing all the time. It's like a vine, its shedding new skin, that's what democracy is about, that's why democracy is more a verb than a noun. It's more a way of life than a mode of governance, and it creates a mode of governance in part because the demos, in taking back their power, want to ensure that the concessions that they get from elites are preserved.
Women voting in 1920 – you know how long that took? That particular slice of the demos – the majority of citizens – finally gaining access, unbelievable contestation, organization. But it's incomplete. Blacks finally, for the most part, in 1965 – that's a long time. They arrived in 1619; 22 percent of the inhabitants of the 13 Colonies were enslaved Africans in 1776, 26 percent of the Continental Army led by George Washington in Yorktown was black folk. George says, My God, these negroes, these black folk, these Africans – they're extraordinary in battle, I've been told they were inferior. You been lied to, George. White supremacy is a lie, George. I'm beginning to see that. That's going to be real news for many Americans for hundreds of years: that white supremacy is a lie. Some folks are still working on it.
This issue of democracy, tied to anti-democratic institutions like slavery and patriarchy – you're absolutely right, that's what human history is. Recall that wonderful line of F. Scott Fitzgerald in 1938's, "The Crackup," that wonderful essay he published in Esquire. He said "The test of a first-rate intelligence is the ability to hold two opposed ideas in the mind at the same time and still retain the ability to function." That's what we need to learn to do as citizens. We can keep track of the best and the worst of America, you see. Democratic impulse and the imperialist impulse, they both always already there. In the end, in part we are wrestling with ourselves. Because when you look deep inside of your own soul, you'll see what history has deposited there – and it's not always salutary, though sometimes it is.
Q: What do you think of Bill Cosby saying how African Americans need to take more responsibility for pulling themselves out of poverty?
A: Bill Cosby is a comic genius who has a right to express his opinions. It is very interesting that when he expresses his opinion it becomes a national debate in the mainstream press. A number of other black Americans have opinions, express them daily, but get no limelight whatsoever. Sometimes they even have more insight than Brother Cosby. So you have to raise first the question of the principle of selectivity: Why it is that the press chooses to highlight those particular remarks? If Cosby had said what I said before, "I'm deeply concerned about the same young black folk playing a disproportionate role in the war in Iraq and I would like to have Mr. Bush speak specifically to this issue" – would that be on the front page of The New York Times and Washington Post?
That doesn't mean you don't address the issue, but you have to put it in context. And there is no doubt that all of us can take more responsibility. There is no doubt that young people can, there is no doubt that black people ought. As I said before, democracy is about responsibility and answerability. For me, the question has to do with whether, in fact, those kinds of statements are said in a spirit of correction and compassion or in the spirit of degradation and devaluation. Young black folk are already devalued enough, trashed enough; if you're just going to add another swipe to the trashing, then it's not useful, even if it has a truthful ring to it.
When I met Brother Cosby, when I saw him in Boston, that was the first thing I asked him. I said, brother, you really generate a lot of controversy here and I think it's very important to make it clear that you say this with a spirit of correction and compassion because you are concerned about the quality of lives of those young folk. He did come back and acknowledge that, he said. But the young folk themselves didn't often hear it that way. I talked to some of them. They were very upset because they thought they were being trashed again, as they had been trashed so many times, and I do not believe that one proceeds in accenting the better angels of anybody's nature by trashing them. I don't trash Bush, I don't. I mean if I had priorities and a ranking I would tend to begin with the most powerful, that's just my Christian sensibility. I begin with pharaohs, but I don't even believe in trashing pharaohs because it's wrong; it's not good for your soul. And when I see people trashing the most vulnerable in a society, then I know that something is deeply wrong. So my answer in part is that I think Cosby had to clear it up, and it was language appropriated in such a way so that many people who do go around trashing these folks wanted to highlight it and elevate it, so it became easier to become indifferent to the suffering that they're wrestling with.
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