Cornel West In Concert: Would You Have Given Him Tickets To Your Inaugural?

Beneath the Spin*Eric L. Wattree

Cornel West Responds To Michael Dyson Take-Down

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In response to Michael Eric Dyson's scathing take-down, West issued what must have been the shortest comment of his career - probably because Dyson was so thorough in his take-down that it didn't leave West much room for a defense. But even what he did say was so delusional, self-serving, and disingenuous that it ventured into the realm of other-worldliness. One of the things that West said was the following:
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"Character assassination is the refuge of those who hide and conceal these issues in order to rationalize their own allegiance to the status quo."
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What!!!!!!?  West either doesn't even bother to listen to his own rhetoric, or he's been in a somnambulistic trance for the past 6 years. He's never seen a high-profile BLACK person who overshadows him whose character he didn't want to assassinate - he tends to give White folks a pass.  Have you ever heard West say ANYTHING, other than a casual passing remark, regarding the impact that Republican obstructionism is having on poverty?  I don't think so.  And is West doing ANYTHING to inform the public that the United States Constitution gives the United States House of Representatives SOLE power over spending, so anything that President Obama wants to do for the poor and middle class he has to get the Republican controlled House to go along with him?  No he is not. He's trying to give the public the impression that President Obama is KING Obama, and why? - in an attempt to assassinate the President's character (http://wattree.blogspot.com/2012/11/what-has-obama-done-for-poor-and-middle.html).
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And finally , West is more disingenuous than any demagogue in the public sphere. He tried to paint President Obama as an ingrate for not giving him tickets to the inaugural. If you'd like to know why he didn't get tickets, just watch West "in concert" below, and then ask yourself, would you have given him tickets? West makes a valiant attempt to represent himself as being "a man of the people," but when you're disingenuous, your true mindset seeps out through the cracks, and West's true mindset slipped out in a big way in his performance below. He said that Barack Obama represented "unadulterated mediocrity," In other words, this Black man wasn't qualified to live up to the standards of  the White presidents of the past - and this was WHILE we were suffering through the gross incompetence of George W. Bush, who WEST helped to get elected.   So he has to be a complete and clueless, self-serving egomaniac to even EXPECT the President to give him a pass on his comments.
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Listen to this guy! - and notice the arrogant smirk on Tavis Smiley's face as "his boy" performs.  But West got so caught up in his performance that he went WAY over the top. Up until that time, I was caught up in the hype about Cornel West myself. But it was at the moment below that I first recognized that we weren't dealing with an intellectual; we were dealing with a fool, and I've been on a mission every since. So I welcome the the insight that Michael Eric Dyson has brought to this debate on West. Maybe with someone of his stature essentially co-signing on what I've been saying for the past 7 years, I'll no longer be spittin' in the wind.

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CORNEL WEST IN CONCERT

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BEFORE THE ELECTION

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AND CONSIDER THIS - EVEN AS CORNEL WEST WAS ASKING OBAMA "WHERE'S YOUR MONEY COMING FROM?" IN THE VIDEO ABOVE, TAVIS SMILEY (HIS GOOD BUDDY AND CLOSEST ASSOCIATE) WAS INVOLVED IN THE WELLS FARGO "GHETTO SCAM," WHICH, ACCORDING TO THE DEPARTMENT OF JUSTICE, WAS THE SECOND LARGEST HOUSING DISCRIMINATION CASE IN THE NATION'S HISTORY, AND CAUSED 30,000 POOR AND MIDDLE CLASS MINORITIES TO LOSE THEIR HOMES AND LIFE SAVINGS.  WELLS FARGO SETTLED THE CASE FOR  $175 MILLION.  BACK THEN TAVIS SMILEY WAS RIDING HIGH, SO NOTICE HE AND CORNEL'S ARROGANCE, AS THOUGH BARACK OBAMA HAD AN OBLIGATION TO COME AND GET THEIR BLESSING TO RUN FOR PRESIDENT. ALSO NOTE THAT NOW THAT SMILEY HAS LOST POPULARITY, WEST HAS CUT TIES WITH HIM, EVEN AFTER REMAINING CONNECTED AT THE HIP (AND WITHOUT OPENING HIS MOUTH) DURING THE WELLS FARGO SCANDAL. 

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AFTER THE ELECTION

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Cornel West spews more racist rhetoric than any Republican in America. The reason for that is he’s essentially an entertainer who specializes in shock and race-baiting as his one and only routine. Clear evidence of that is he's over the top in everything that defines him - he's over the top in his personal image, in his overly gesticulative presentation, and his rhetoric is invariably inflammatory. Everything about him is a contrivance that’s specifically designed to bring attention to himself. The actual issues are meaningless to him. They're nothing more than a platform to launch his performance. In short, Cornel West is the Liberace of faux intellectualism.
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Have you ever noticed that nearly every public pronouncement that spews from the mouth of Cornel West is literally dripping with racial innuendo? One of his latest racist slanders is that MSNBC is the ‘Rent a Negro’ network. West has said at various times the following:
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1). President Obama is "a war criminal."
2). President Obama is "a black mascot of Wall Street oligarchs . . ."
3). President Obama is "a black puppet of corporate plutocrats."
4). President Obama is "a Rockefeller Republican in Blackface."
5). President Obama "has a certain rootlessness, a deracination."
6). President Obama Is "Afraid Of Free Black Men."
7). President Obama is "a global George Zimmerman."
8). Dr. Harris-Perry is "a fake and a fraud"
9). Dr. Michael Eric Dyson "is a sellout."
10). Al Sharpton "is a sellout."
11). MSNBC is the "Rent a Negro Network."
12). And if that’s not enough, now he’s quoted as calling the first Black President of the United States “a shell of a man.”
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Yet, when comedian Steve Harvey called him an Uncle Tom, he said, "When you are trying to talk about issues that affect the people, name calling gets in the way. Name-calling is nothing but another weapon of mass distraction."
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So name-calling is only objectionable when it’s directed at him. Such unmitigated hypocrisy is mind boggling - but for once, he’s right. Not one of the above assertions is a disciplined, constructive, or scholarly assessment of the facts. On the contrary, they're the reckless and intellectually undisciplined rants of a bitter, self-serving, and severely discredited academic fraud.
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For Cornel West, there’s something ‘racially defective’ about every Black person who has the audacity to preempt Cornel West from the limelight. West has a propensity for trying to denigrate the character of people whose been in the trenches for years, while West, himself, has done absolutely nothing beyond running his mouth. In order to gain clear evidence of that fact one simply has to ask oneself, what efforts have West made to try to improve the plight of the Black community?
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1). Is he in the community teaching 3rd grade to help ensure a better education for our children, or teaching at an Historically Black College or University to help "enlighten" young Black students?
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No. He’s never taught at a school that more than 1% of Black students can even afford to have lunch in throughout his entire career. He’d rather gain props for teaching the children of the economic elites, who he CLAIMS, is the enemy, whenever he MANAGES to do a "Drive-by" in the hood.
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2). Is he in the community teaching our young men to cherish, honor, and respect our Black women - the very womb of our culture?
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No. He’s out trying to sell books filled with inane and misleading information, doing $30,000 an hour speeches, and trying to become a hip hop star.
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3). Is he advising his good friend and business partner, Tavis Smiley, to be consistent with his sermons by being "accountable" to the community, and returning the money that he made on the Wells Fargo "Ghetto Scam" loans that he helped to herd over 30,000 poor minorities into? Or is he out getting arrested in support of the Black Friday Demonstrations against Wal-Mart, the most prolific abuser of poor workers in the world?
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Nope, not a peep.
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What kind of true Black man is going to disrespect a sister (Melissa Harris-Perry) - IN PUBLIC - by calling her a "liar and a fraud?" That's not a proud Black man; that's a petulant and self-serving punk who doesn't even have sense enough to respect the very WOMB of his own culture. He would NEVER have said that about a White woman.  That poot-butt needed to be taken down - AND PUBLICLY!
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Cornel West is one of the two most hypocritical gasbags that the Black community has ever produced. He's running neck and neck with Tavis Smiley.
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Tavis Smiley and Cornel West Ducked The Walmart Demonstrations . . . AGAIN!!!
http://wattree.blogspot.com/2014/11/tavis-smiley-and-cornel-west-ducked.html
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Eric L. Wattree
Http://wattree.blogspot.com
Ewattree@Gmail.com
Citizens Against Reckless Middle-Class Abuse (CARMA)
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Religious bigotry: It's not that I hate everyone who doesn't look, think, and act like me - it's just that God does.

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Tavis, West, and Malcolm

Beneath the Spin * Eric L. Wattree

Tavis, West, and Malcolm



While browsing the web this morning I came across an article written by Dr. Boyce Watkins blaring, "Cornel West Says that Sharpton, Dyson are “Up for Sale”: Let’s Talk about That One, Shall We?" My first reaction was, "Hmmmm, Dr. Dyson must have gotten a new job."
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The reason that's the first thing that came to mind was because Cornel West is rapidly building a reputation for attacking anyone in the Black community who tends to overshadow him. This tendency, and the reckless and petty way in which he pursues it, has become so pronounced in West that it's beginning to betray his primary agenda as a whole. He's not interested in the Black community at all. All Cornel West is interested in is keeping Cornel West in the media spotlight.

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West is quick to drag out any shortcomings that he can conjure up regarding anyone black that tends to step into his spotlight. Take President Obama, for example. I don't recall West ever being so disrespectful to George W. Bush. That speaks volumes about his mentality and both he and Tavis' lack of respect for Black people in general. But they always try to claim that their critics are simply "trying to kill the messenger."  Well, in a sense they're right, because with respect to President Obama, their true message is, "How dare that spook try to con us into believing that he's good enough to do a White man's job?"  And that's a message worth killing.
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And West's hatred and envy continue with his disrespectful remarks about Dr. Melissa Harris-Perry. Just like with Obama, West was fine with Dr. Perry at first. He recruited her to come to Princeton and they were colleagues. But once it became clear that Dr. Perry had a mind of her own, and that she wasn't prone to hero worship, West began to undermine her at Princeton, so she quietly left.
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That should have been the end of it, but once West found out that she had been given a show on MSNBC, all hell broke lose. Instead of this good brother - who only lives to serve his people - being gratified that another intelligent Black voice gained access to the national media - as anyone who is genuinely concerned about the Black community should be - he caved in to his petty personal sentiments and publicly insulted Dr. Perry by calling her “a fake and a fraud.”  That’s not the behavior of either an intellectual, a mature adult, or even an intelligent Black man, at least, one who has even an iota of respect for the very womb of his culture.
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So again, it seems that Cornel West is always prepared to preach a much better sermon on black love and respect than he's willing to live. His comments were extremely disrespectful toward both Black women, and the Black community as a whole. A true brother - a true man - wouldn't even speak to a lady like that in private, much less, badmouth her like that publicly.

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Whatever happen to the concept of cherishing our women?  No one should have to teach Cornel about that. As a so-called Black intellectual, that's exactly what he should be teaching our young people - that it's impossible for them to have any respect for themselves, if they don't respect the very womb of their culture. How can anyone profess to be an intellectual and fail to understand that very fundamental concept?  West also betrayed his elitist sense of entitlement, as well as his disdain for the poor and working class, when he complained about a mere baggage handler getting tickets to the Presidential Inauguration while he couldn't.

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And it doesn't end there. West has also seen fit to go after Jay-Z. Obviously Jay-Z was getting a little too much publicity over his part ownership of the Brooklyn Nets and the Barclay Center. So West took it upon himself to set the record straight. In essence, he said, "Wait a minute, world! That pickaninny don't own nothing. TheWhite man owns it! So you see, I'm still the man!" Okay West, but what does fronting off Jay-Z have to do with moving Black people forward?
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So Cornel West is not only a demagogue, but he's a demagogue of the very worst kind. Just before he sticks a knife in your back, he starts talking about "how much he loves his brother, however . . ."  That may be so, but with "good brothers" like Cornel West, we'd all be better off orphans. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_E6lS0gLH18

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Now he's also badmouthing Rev. Al Sharpton and Dr.Michael Eric Dyson, saying they're "up for sale." What's wrong with this guy? What evidence does he have of that? If he has evidence to substantiate what he's saying, he should produce it.  If he doesn't, he should shut up.   How does it benefit the Black community by his running all over the country slandering every high-profile Black person who doesn't see things his way? He seems to have something to say about everybody but his buddy, Tavis, who's one of the most prolific corporate shills in the Black community. Tavis also have close associations with several corporations, including Walmart, that are, or have been, a member of ALEC, an organization that's left no stone unturned to deprive Black people of their right to vote - and we've got evidence of that.

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DO YOU BELIEVE NATIONWIDE
IS ON YOUR SIDE?

So the fact is, many in the Black community have allowed themselves to be hornswoggled by both the media, and Cornel West. The bottom line is,West is nothing more than a self-absorbed, egomaniacal fraud who hasn’t had an original thought in 35 years, and it looks like the Black community is the last to recognize that.

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Some of us have allowed ourselves to be bedazzled by two words - Harvard and Princeton. The establishment has effectively used those two words to convince many of us to accept, without examination, that Cornel West has more sense than we do. That's what accounts for the rabid defense of him in some quarters. These people need to step out of their media-constructed bubble, open their eyes, ears, and minds, and stop letting others dictate who they listen to.
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The White establishment has been propping West up with their very special kind of hype for all of his 35 years in the public eye. Yet, I have never met one person who can tell me one profound sentence he’s uttered in the three-and-a-half decades that he’s been on the public stage - and a stage is exactly what it's been, because West is more of an entertainer than an intellectual.
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Tavis and West are exactly like Herman Cain, but with one exception - at least Herman Cain is honest about supporting the GOP. But Tavis and West are using a technique used by the FBI during COINTELPRO, when J. Edgar Hoover was trying to bring down the civil rights movement in the sixties. During that time Hoover sent in a bunch of "undercover brothers" just like Tavis and West. They were so radically militant that they turned off the American people, and they were so divisive that they caused the movement to turn on itself. That’s exactly what Tavis and West are doing today.
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These two turncoats are trying to place Obama in an untenable position. They’re using militant rhetoric to insist that President Obama play Blackjack at a poker table, knowing damn well that he can’t do that. If he tries, he'll turn the American people against him - in which case, he becomes impotent and can't get anything done for anyone. But if he doesn’t, Tavis and West are going to try to turn Black people against him, which would also serve to destroy his presidency.
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That’s exactly the same thing the FBI did in the sixties. In the end, they had young Black people (who supported the harder line of Malcolm) calling Martin Luther King, "Martin Luther Coon" - including myself, I’m ashamed to admit. That’s exactly what Tavis and West are doing today. I saw the parallel immediately, and that’s why I’m dead on their asses. Maybe I can make up, just a little bit, for the stupidity of my youth.
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Malcolm saw through the problem back in the sixties and tried to instruct his followers not to allow the establishment to divide us among ourselves. He’s said that it didn’t matter whether or not we saw eye-to-eye with Martin's approach on every issue. Our goal was the same, therefore, we were allies. He then made it a point to join with Martin, but they took him out before he could complete the process.
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So while Tavis and West are always talking about, "Brother Malcolm," Malcolm would have long since seen through their game, and he would be absolutely disgusted with both of them, just as I am.

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Related Articles

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Wells Fargo to pay $175 million
. "If Tavis Smiley was white, Wells Fargo and ‘Ghetto Loans’ would be front page news," 'wrote Genma Stringer Holmes, a Nashville, Tenn., business owner and blogger who has blasted out several posts on the seminars."'
http://washingtonindependent.com/59633/suit-alleges-trusted-black-figures-drew-minorities-to-high-rate-loans
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WELLS FARGO HIRED TRUSTED BLACK FIGURES TO ALLEGEDLY DRAW MINORITIES TO HIGH-RATE LOANS

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Tavis Smiley Headlined Seminars
Targeting African Americans

"The Washington Independent

reports that Wells Fargo & Co. allegedly targeted African American borrowers for higher-cost subprime mortgages. The bank attracted attendees to a series of day-long "Wealth Building" seminars held in black neighborhoods in eight cities across the country by featuring trusted black speakers.

"The seminars, promoted heavily in black media, featured prominent African American commentator and PBS talk show host Tavis Smiley as well as Kelvin Boston, the host of "Moneywise," a multicultural financial affairs show."

http://www.mysanantonio.com//business/article/Wells-Fargo-to-pay-175-million-3703567.php*
　

It's Time to Boycott Tavis, West, and All Black on Black Racists

http://wattree.blogspot.com/2012/09/its-time-to-boycott-tavis-west-and-all.html

Eric L. Wattree
Http://wattree.blogspot.com
Ewattree@Gmail.com

Religious bigotry: It's not that I hate everyone who doesn't look, think, and act like me - it's just that God does.

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Tavis Smiley, Cornel West, and Boyce Watkins: The Treacherous Trio

Beneath the Spin * Eric L. Wattree

Tavis Smiley, Cornel West, and Boyce Watkins: The Treacherous Trio
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During these dire times it is incumbent upon the Black community to recognize, assess, and correct the historic flaws in our mores that represent the self-hating and destructive remnants of our past history of slavery. We are now faced with such a moment.
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The insidious intellectual assault on the Black community posed by Tavis Smiley and Dr. Cornel West seems to have gained the able assistance of Dr. Boyce Watkins of Syracuse University. So ‘The Dangerous Duo’ have now morphed into ‘The Treacherous Trio.’ While I’m always reluctant to base an article on an ad hominous (corruption of ‘ad hominem’) argument, when dealing with the kind of historically treacherous, petulant, hypocritical, and self-righteous delusions of grandeur that these three individuals represent, it’s impossible to avoid - at least, if one is truly intent on aggressively beating back the gross manipulation of the Black community.
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It was no accident that with the announcement that Dr. Melissa Harris-Perry had been given her own show on MSNBC that Cornel West and Boyce Watkins immediately chimed in with an intense campaign of invective and criticism of Dr. Perry. Their behavior was so predictably transparent that it was like deja vu all over again. It’s a classic case of crabs in a barrel. Both their petulant behavior and motivation is inspired by the exact same petty emotions that’s caused them to brutally attack Barack Obama - bitter envy and the fear of being eclipsed in the Black community.
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There is clear evidence of that. Specifically, while Cornel West is renowned for alleging that all he cares about is what’s in the best interest of ‘his people,’ immediately after the announcement of Dr. Perry’s new show on MSNBC he’s been quoted as saying that she’s "a liar and a fraud." How does such an attack on a brilliant young Black woman’s elevation into the public eye benefit ‘his people?’ Doesn't the Black community benefit tremendously from having America exposed to another intelligent Black voice, whether that voice agrees with Cornel West or not? If West truly believed in the utter nonsense that he espouses the answer to that qusetion would go without saying. So why is West trying to undermine her public image?  Thus, while West contends that he's supportive of the Black community, his behavior reflects otherwise.
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So whether it’s due to intense envy, sour grapes, or the early onset of senility, West has been repeatedly betraying his carefully crafted persona of the selfless Black intellectual of late.  I first began to recognize it on the very day that, then, Sen. Barack Obama threw his hat in the ring to run for President of the United States. West immediately began to criticize Obama's election team, questioned where he was getting his money to run for office, and then he challenged Obama with the question of "How much do you love your people?" That took place before the nation and a grinning Tavis Smiley during Tavis’ ‘State of the Black Union’ broadcast. It appeared to be in direct response to Sen. Obama’s failure to postpone his announcement and appear on the broadcast to kiss Tavis’ ring.
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But West seems to have no shame when it comes to either his own self-interest, or, monitoring which way the wind is blowing, so in spite of the public spectacle that he engaged in on behalf of Tavis Smiley, once it became clear that Obama actually had a chance to win the election, West didn’t hesitate to go on the road to campaign for him.
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But after Obama won the presidency and West failed to receive the goodies that he obviously expected, yet again,West betrayed his image as the selfless Black intellectual - but this time his petulance revealed itself in all of its arrogant, petty, and condescending glory.
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This time West not only criticized the first Black President of the United States as "a black mascot of Wall Street oligarchs and a black puppet of corporate plutocrats," he then went on to say, "I think my dear brother Barack Obama has a certain fear of free black men." So not only was West grossly disrespectful of President Obama as president, but then, in the very finest tradition of a common sheet-wearing racist, he publically slandered the president as a Black man as well.
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So if Cornel West’s reckless verbal assault on the President of the United States was not enough to completely discredit him as a public intellectual - or an intellectual of any sort, for that matter - the mere fact that he shot off his mouth without being able to substantiate one syllable of his allegations certainly should have. In addition, his public disrespect for the first Black President of the United States was not only disrespectful of the institution and the president himself, but it was also a disrespectful assault on the Black community as a whole. It seemed to indicate that since Obama was Black, that he didn't warrant the respect of previous white presidents.
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Thereafter, many of West’s colleagues and supporters attempted to justify his behavior by trying to conjure up some higher purpose that his blatantly irresponsible rant was serving.  But their hope of restoring some dignity to his image was dashed when it was revealed that the entire episode - a public tirade that will certainly go down in the annals of historic stupidity - came about for no other reason than the fact that Cornel West felt slighted because he failed to receive tickets to the inauguration, and the future President of the United States failed to return his personal phone calls.
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Then, if that wasn't petty enough, what was really telling was his attitude toward one of the gentlemen who did manage to get tickets to the inauguration. West was quoted as saying . . . "I couldn’t get a ticket with my mother and my brother. I said this is very strange. We drive into the hotel and the guy who picks up my bags from the hotel has a ticket to the inauguration."
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Now, consider the mindset of this man. What makes West think that he’s more deserving of a ticket than the brother who picks up his bags? I don’t know how West supporters feel about it, but that sounds absolutely nothing like a brother who believes so passionately in human equality that he reportedly gets ten thousand dollars a speech to espouse his point of view. Actually, it sounds more like an irate brat who suffers from an intense sense of superior entitlement.
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So am I surprised by West’s unscholarly attack on Dr. Perry’s good fortune? Not at all. I’ve come to expect it from him. In an Ebony article, A Black Woman’s "Life of the Mind" is Her Own: Melissa Harris Perry, Dr. Kimberly Ellis indicates that in spite of the fact that Dr. Perry was recruited to Princeton by West, when she came up for a full-professorship she was denied, and West was involved in the process. So it would seem that while West has a mantra of publically espousing how much he loves his people, when he’s cloistered from public view within the walls of academia his true character begins to surface, a character that seems to be gradually oozing from beneath the ivy covered walls and into the public domain.

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And if you watch closely, you’ll notice that West’s character and poor judgement is becoming ever more pronounced in his defenders and the people who become publically associated with him. I’ve watched that process taking place in Dr. Boyce Watkins of Syracuse University. In his article, "A Very Bad Reason to Vote for the Democrats," Watkins says, "If you want my vote, you must address my issues…if you’re too busy to address my issues, then I’m too busy to vote for you. PERIOD."
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While that sounds quite reasonable - at least, at first blush - the logical question to ask in response to Watkins' proclamation is, then who does he suggest that we vote for, the GOP lunatics that even the Republican voters don’t want? Or maybe he’s suggesting that we just sit on our hands and let the lunatics vote themselves into office. Either way, that would be absolutely devastating to the Black community.
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Thus, with so-called intellectuals like these, the black community doesn’t need any enemies.  So, while I was already a fan of Dr. Perry, even if I'd never heard of her before, once any one of The Treacherous Trio began to criticized her, that alone would have served as a ringing endorsement.
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DO YOU REALLY BELIEVE THAT NATIONWIDE IS ON YOUR SIDE?

Eric L. Wattree
Http://wattree.blogspot.com
Ewattree@Gmail.com
Citizens Against Reckless Middle-Class Abuse (CARMA)
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Religious bigotry: It's not that I hate everyone who doesn't look, think, and act like me - it's just that God does.

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Tavis Smiley and Cornel West: The Reign of Fools is Over

BENEATH THE SPIN * ERIC L. WATTREE

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Tavis Smiley and Cornel West: The Reign of Fools is Over

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While I clearly understand that I'm at severe risk of beating a dead horse, I'm still being emailed by a few diehard Cornel West supporters who have been so captivated by his performances over the years that they can't see why he's under such intense criticism. So for their benefit, I thought I'd take the time to do the Mr. Rogers version of current events:

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The first thing that needs to be made clear is that the current uproar is not in reprisal to West's criticism of President Obama. Every politician bears watching, and that includes Obama. The firestorm against Dr. West was ignited by two factors.  First, many resent the totally disrespectful and hypocritical tone of his criticism. The implication seemed to have been,  "Who does that jigaboo think he is?" And secondly, other critics took offense at the blatantly transparent and self-serving motivation behind West's remarks.
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Carnel West, along with his buddy, Tavis Smiley, have been using the umbrella approach in criticizing President Obama. Instead of criticizing specific policies when needed, they've been attaking his overall character, and thereby, his fitness to be president as a whole. It must also be understood that long before Obama even became president, Smiley and West suggested that the Black community ask him "how much do you love your people," suggesting, thereby, that he didn't.

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They've been at this since the day Obama made the mistake of announcing his candidacy for president on the same day that Tavis threw his annual State of the Black Union soirée. In their eyes, what the impudent young Senator Obama did was unforgivable. You see, he engaged in a serious breach of protocol. He was supposed to come kiss Tavis' ring, and get Tavis' blessing as the self-appointed grand potentate of the Black community before he presumed to run for President. How dare he embark on such an ambitious endeavor without paying homage to the Grand Poobah?  So of course, he had to pay a price for these serious breaches of protocol, and President Obama has been under the gun of these two self-appointed icons of the Black community every since.

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So who are these two iconic giants of the Blackness who see themselves as so important that they can dictate policy to the President of the United States?
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Tavis Smiley is a television dicjockey with a genius for self-promotion.  He specializes in promoting corporate influence in the Black community in exchange for corporate sponsored tours to promote his books on political accountability.
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Dr. Cornel West is a self-described "Socratic scholar" with a doctorate that embraces the proposition that Moses parted the Red Sea. He's also renowned for trying to be the coolest person in the room, and taking a long time not to say much. He specializes in telling anyone who will listen, or who happens to have a camera, a mic and an extension cord on hand, about his deep disdain for the oligarchs and corporate plutocrats.  He also has a fondness for the syncopated rhythms of multi syllabic words - he thinks it makes him sound like King Pleasure, so it enhances his street creds. They also serve to mask the vacuous content of his message.
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So these two impressive personages have now come together as best friends.  They co-host a radio show together, and have declared themselves the self-proclaimed, and hip hop inspired, saviors of the poor, middle class, and minorities. They're sorta like the Dynamic Duo of the hood, or Mutt and Jeff, as it were.

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But there's only one chink in their armor (and as you know, all superheroes have a chink - Superman's was Kryptonite). While Tavis is suppose to be fighting for accountability, and Cornel is suppose to be protecting us from the oligarchs and plutocrats, they're both irretrievably wedded to the very same people they're suppose to be protecting us from.  So they're like Batman and Robin with a crack habit. You see, Tavis is one of the most pronounced corporate shills in the Black community.  He has a tremendous jones for Walmart, Nationwide Insurance, and various other corporate entities.

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Do you really believe that Nationwide is on the side of the Black community, or the poor, or the middle class?  Somehow, I don't think so. So these two superheroes have about as much credibility as a man ranting in the street against fascism after just having lunch with Mussolini.

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There's a photo on my site of West suckin' up to Obama after the election - and this, after he and Tavis had been doggin' Obama all during the campaign. I haven't seen that kind of skinnin'-n- grinnin' since they took Amos n' Andy off the air. But the look that Obama is giving West says it all. It speaks volumes, and clearly shows that Obama has had West's number for some time. So one has to wonder how West could even have expected tickets to the inaugural or returned phone calls when he'd been jumping back and forth over the fence depending on which way the wind was blowing.

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But I want to make it clear to all those people who think that West should be given a pass in the name of brotherly love, that it is not my intention to be vindictive. While I'm undoubtedly engaging in ridicule, it's not to be mean-spirited. As I see it, we shouldn't waste this disgusting moment in history without benefitting from it in some way.  So I see this as a teaching moment.  This is our opportunity to show our young people the importance of independent thought.  I also see it as an opportunity to demonstrate to all would-be opportunists among us that's it's no longer acceptable to try to demagogue the Black community. That gig has gone the way of the wagon train mechanic.

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In addition, we should all use this moment as a lesson in why we should never take society's symbols and the accoutrements of knowledge and power at face value. We also need to recognize that we should never give anyone's character or ability to think priority over our own. Once we learn those lessons we'll render ourselves much less vulnerable to political manipulation. 
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We should walk away from this moment with the clear understanding that Just because a person has letters behind their name, teach at a prestigious university, favor a garbled multi syllabic tongue, or host a television show, that doesn't mean that they have any more intelligence, or any more character than we do. We should always ignore the superficial, and assess the quality of a person on our own terms, and not allow the system to shove its carefully selected  "heroes" down our throats. 

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And finally, we should allow this episode in our history to mark the moment where the crabs-in-a-barrel syndrome comes to an abrupt end in the Black community. The game that Smiley and West have been playing has been holding Black people down for centuries. So now's the time for it to stop, and we should mercilessly banish from our midst anyone we find engaging in it. Let us make it abundantly clear, that the reign of fools is over.
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Dr Cornel West and Intellectual Rice Cake

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Eric L. Wattree

http://wattree.blogspot.com/

Ewattree@Gmail.com

Citizens Against Reckless Middle-Class Abuse (CARMA)

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Religious bigotry: It's not that I hate everyone who doesn't look, think, and act like me - it's just that God does.

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Does the West/Obama Controversy Constitute Blacks Airing Dirty Laundry?

Beneath the Spin * Eric L. Wattree
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Does the West/Obama Controversy Constitute Blacks Airing Dirty Laundry?

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There are some in the Black community who feel that the controversy ignited after Dr. Cornel West slandered President Obama is counterproductive. Dr. West of Princeton University accused President Obama of being “a black mascot of Wall Street oligarchs and a black puppet of corporate plutocrats.” He then went on to say that Obama was  threatened by “a free Black man.” Critics of the resulting firestorm against Cornel West dismiss it as nothing but an exercise in Black intellectual elitists contemplating their navels and airing the Black community’s dirty laundry in public.
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In her article,“Cornel West: The Fallout Continues Over Obama Comments,” that appeared in TheRoot, Dr. Nsenga Burton says the following:
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“Isn't it interesting that black male commentators are using stereotypes ascribed to black males to critique West, and diminishing his intellectual contributions in the process? Instead of a 'bloody lip,' in the game of dozens when one goes too far, West's virtual 'bloody lip' is the result of blogosphere gone awry.”
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The above take on this issue is so far off the mark on so many levels that I feel obliged to address much of it in the first person.
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While admittedly, many of us will feel an innate visceral attachment to Dr. Burton's argument, our commitment to logical thought should force us to reject it out of hand. First, every debate is a source of knowledge, so to say that any source of knowledge has “gone awry” is counterintuitive on its face. Secondly, I personally reject the entire concept of fixating on Black stereotyping. Allowing ourselves to become consumed by this issue is a gross waste of intellectual energy, since we should never allow our concern over what other people think to overwhelm our vision of how we see ourselves.
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Instead of becoming obsessed with how others portray us, our energies should be directed toward living above any kind of negative stereotyping. That’s one of the things that Obama does so well, and it’s the primary reason why he’s hated so intensely by his enemies - both Black and White. To my knowledge, Obama hasn’t said a word in response to Dr. West’s tirade. He’s handling it just like he handled Donald Trump - instead of preaching us a sermon, he’s living us one. While there's room to criticize any president, and I too have criticisms of Obama, every person in America should take great pride in the way that young brother represented this nation during his recent trip to Europe. That's the way you address negative stereotyping, through excellence.
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But even if we do take stereotyping into consideration, I don’t see what calling an idiotic statement idiotic has to do with Black stereotyping, that is, unless we consider Cornel West's behavior representative of the quintessential Black man. If we do, and we feel that we have to hide it as "dirty laundry,"  that suggests we feel that Black people corner the market on idiocy, a position that I would vigorously reject.
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Dr. Burton’s position also seems to suggest that the ongoing debate occupies intellectual terrain that is somehow remote from the average Black person’s frame of reference. That's the worst kind of stereotyping. Such a position is not only condescending to the Black community, but it also betrays an intellectual elitism that grossly underestimates the intelligence of the Black community.
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She quotes me in the Black Star News as saying,
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"The fact is, anyone who considers West's remarks toward President Obama merely an objective and scholarly critique of the political environment needs to go back and take a refresher course in both freshman English and forensics. The comments directed at President Obama by Cornel West was nothing short of a racist and petty personal tirade by a woefully presumptuous and undisciplined mind. His comments were not only less than constructive and nonspecific, but they were also saturated with unsubstantiated personal attacks against the president. They were, indeed, Palinesque in both nature and intent."
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I stand by every syllable unequivocally, and I challenge anyone to show me where I was in error. Yet, Dr. Burton says the following regarding my comments, and the comments of others, attendant to this controversy:
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“But we do hope that this plantation narrative that is spiraling out of control in the new-media space will right itself and become a discussion about something meaningful - explicit policies to protect the poor - as opposed to an abundance of attacks on a brother, even West, who admittedly was dead wrong. Bashing West the same way that he bashed Obama is hypocritical and is not moving the discussion, the intellectual community or this country forward.”
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I find Dr. Burton’s position quite curious. Why is it that every other group in America feels free to debate and criticize one another ad nauseam, yet the minute we point out that Cornel West made a damn fool of himself it becomes “plantation” mentality? If we are ever to move forward in the Black community, we must feel just as free as any other segment of the population to call a hat a hat, and a fool a fool. If we embrace that as a tradition, maybe the next Cornel West will be much more circumspect before making a foolish and self-serving idiot of himself.
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Thus, instead of refraining from criticizing fellow Blacks, we should do it much more often. If we’d spoken out more aggressively against Clarence Thomas we probably wouldn’t be suffering from his ignorance today. And frankly, I don’t see a discernable difference - a demagogue is a demagogue, regardless of political persuasion. If Obama would have embraced West after his election, believe me, West would have undoubtedly been one of Obama's most enthusiastic cheerleaders. He's clearly demonstrated his character in that regard.
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So the fact is, with the benefit of hindsight, I wish I’d been even more critical. Because if West is indeed as concerned about the Black community as he claims, he needs to resign from the rarified environment of Princeton and come teach third grade in the hood. If that's too big a price to pay for the people he claims to love, he needs to just shut up and write a book; that way we'll have a choice as to whether or not we want to listen to him.
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And by the way, I am far from an Obama cheerleader: http://wattree.blogspot.com/2011/01/obama-supporters-vs-cheerleaders.html. The only reason I have to point that out is because Tavis Smiley and West have muddied the waters so badly that when we speak out, we must now convince one another that we’re not just lackeys for either one side or the other. That’s a gross disservice to both the Black community, and America.
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Eric L. Wattree
http://wattree.blogspot.com/
Ewattree@Gmail.com
Citizens Against Reckless Middle-Class Abuse (CARMA)
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Religious bigotry: It's not that I hate everyone who doesn't look, think, and act like me - it's just that God does.

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Is the Attack on Prof. Melissa Harris-Perry’s Article Criticizing Prof. Cornel West Due to Male Academic Cronyism?

Beneath the Spin * Eric L. Wattree
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Is the Attack on Prof. Melissa Harris-Perry’s Article Criticizing Prof. Cornel West Due to Male Academic Cronyism?

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It is a curious yet instructive phenomenon watching Black male academics rush to the defense of Dr. Cornel West after he called President Obama a “Black mascot of Wall Street oligarchs.” They also stood by when West went on to say that “Obama has a certain fear of free black men.” They said that it was perfectly legitimate for West to comment on the political environment as he saw it. But when Dr. Melissa Harris-Perry, West’s female colleague, indicated that West’s comment “smacks of birtherism,” they recoiled in shocked horror. How dare she publicly attack her colleague in that manner? They accused her of being motivated by either soar grapes or professional envy.  Hmmm, ok. But tell me, what makes Cornel West more sacrosanct than the President of the United States?

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The fact is, anyone who considers West’s remarks toward President Obama merely an objective and scholarly critique of the political environment needs to go back and take a refresher course in both freshman English and forensics. The comments directed at President Obama by Cornel West was nothing short of a racist and petty personal tirade by a woefully presumptuous and undisciplined mind.
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His comments were not only less than constructive and nonspecific, but they were also saturated with unsubstantiated personal attacks against the president. They were, indeed, Palinesque in both nature and intent. Thus, his behavior was both unprofessional and disrespectful to not only President Obama, but the office of the president itself. Then when you take into account that there is ample evidence that he was motivated by what he, in his own words, considered a personal slight, then combined that with his close association with Tavis Smiley - who is also smarting from what he considered a personal slight by the president - it is more than reasonable to view West’s behavior as the irate petulance of an embittered egomaniac.
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On the other hand, Prof. Perry couldn’t avoid attacking West’s character, because it was his character that was at issue. So the fact is, Prof. Perry’s criticism of West was the more legitimate. Considering West's behavior, Prof. Perry's remarks constituted a detached and clinical assessment of the facts.  Her position was reasoned, specific, and substantiated with undeniable facts, while West’s criticism of Obama was reckless, overly broad, and filled with gross and unsubstantiated generalizations.
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Yet, in his article, Melissa Harris-Perry’s Attacks on Cornel West: Melissa, Are You Hiding Something?, Dr. Boyce Watkins says,
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“One of the interesting things about all the criticism being thrust at Professor West is that much of it presumes that Cornel is attacking President Obama for personal reasons. There are rumors that he is angry that he was never invited to the inauguration, or that he felt dismissed because the administration won’t return his phone calls. There is no end to the reasons that people are coming up with to explain why Professor West has done what he’s always done, which is to advocate for black, brown, poor and working class people.”
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But the “rumors” that Dr. Watkins speak of are not rumors at all. West is quoted as saying the following:
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“I used to call my dear brother [Obama] every two weeks. I said a prayer on the phone for him, especially before a debate. And I never got a call back. And when I ran into him in the state Capitol in South Carolina when I was down there campaigning for him he was very kind. The first thing he told me was, ‘Brother West, I feel so bad. I haven’t called you back. You been calling me so much. You been giving me so much love, so much support and what have you.’ And I said, ‘I know you’re busy.’ But then a month and half later I would run into other people on the campaign and he’s calling them all the time. I said, wow, this is kind of strange. He doesn’t have time, even two seconds, to say thank you or I’m glad you’re pulling for me and praying for me, but he’s calling these other people. I said, this is very interesting. And then as it turns out with the inauguration I couldn’t get a ticket with my mother and my brother. I said this is very strange. We drive into the hotel and the guy who picks up my bags from the hotel has a ticket to the inauguration. My mom says, ‘That’s something that this dear brother can get a ticket and you can’t get one, honey, all the work you did for him from Iowa.’ Beginning in Iowa to Ohio. We had to watch the thing in the hotel.”
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So I don’t see how the fact that Prof. Perry worked down the hall from West at Princeton has any bearing on this matter. If Dr. Watkins is suggesting that she had an ulterior motive, what evidence does he present to support that claim? Absolutely none. That makes it clear that Watkins is stretching for an equivalence that’s just not there. On the one hand, Prof. Perry presents direct evidence from the mouth of West himself that clearly substantiates her position that West felt slighted by the president, which ultimately led to his reckless behavior, while on the other hand, Dr. Watkins doesn’t present a shred of evidence leading to the conclusion that Prof. Perry had an ulterior motive for her criticism of Dr. West. The only thing he presents is gross speculation and vapors.
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I’m not surprised at all that Dr. West has engaged in such reckless behavior. His fixation on personal affectations suggests the vanity of an undisciplined mind. And apparently I’m not alone. Syndicated columnist Stanley Crouch pointed out in the “Daily News” that “serious black intellectuals privately dismissed West many years ago as no more than an academic loudmouth with a good show business game.”
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But with respect to Dr. Boyce Watkins, I am indeed shocked to see a respected scholar engage in such sloppy thinking. His article suggests the following syllogism: All dogs have fleas. My cat has fleas. Therefore, my cat is a dog. What kind of logic is that?
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Thus, at the risk of being presumptuous, I’d like to pass on to both of these gentlemen a piece of advice that was given to me by the very demure Ms. Immel in my freshman English class many years ago, and I quote: “Eric, if you expect to survive this class, every time you make an assertion, I expect you to start backing it up with compelling facts in the very next sentence, or no later than the following paragraph.”
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That advice has served me well over the years, and it seems to me that both West, and Watkins, might benefit from it as well.
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Dr. Cornel West and Intellectual Rice Cake

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Eric L. Wattree
http://wattree.blogspot.com/
Ewattree@Gmail.com
Citizens Against Reckless Middle-Class Abuse (CARMA)
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Religious bigotry: It's not that I hate everyone who doesn't look, think, and act like me - it's just that God does.

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