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Tonya
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Post Number: 4940
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Votes: 0 (Vote!) | | Posted on Wednesday, March 21, 2007 - 01:36 am: | 
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"What It Means to Be a Leftist in the 21st Century"
by Cornel West
Democracy Now!
March 19, 2007
AMY GOODMAN: The 2007 Left Forum came to a close Sunday in New York City. Each spring, the forum convenes the largest gathering here in the country of the international left. With close to a hundred panels, three major cultural events, the Left Forum brings together organizers and intellectuals from across the globe.
One of those who spoke was professor, culture critic, social justice advocate, Cornel West. He has been described as one of America's most vital and eloquent public intellectuals. A professor of religion and African American studies at Princeton University, Professor West is a critic of culture, now analyst of postmodern art and philosophy, has written and co- authored many books on philosophy, race and sociology.
His most recent book is Democracy Matters: Winning the Fight Against Imperialism. He addressed a panel at the Left Forum. Cornel West began by talking about the status of the political left in 2007.
CORNEL WEST: What does it really mean to be a leftist in the early part of the 21st century?
What are we really talking about? And I can just be very candid with you. It means to have a certain kind of temperament, to make certain kinds of political and ethical choices, and to exercise certain analytical focuses in targeting on the catastrophic and the monstrous, the scandalous, the traumatic, that are often hidden and concealed in the deodorized and manicured discourses of the mainstream. That's what it means to be a leftist.
So let's just be clear about it.
So that if you are concerned about structural violence, if you're concerned about exploitation at the workplace, if you're concerned about institutionalized contempt against gay brothers and lesbian sisters, if you're concerned about organized hatred against peoples of color, if you're concerned about a subordination of women, that's not cheap PC chitchat; that is a calling that you're willing to fight against and try to understand the sources of that social misery at the structural and institutional level and at the existential and the personal level. That's what it means, in part, to be a leftist.
That's why we choose to be certain kinds of human beings. That's why it's a calling, not a career.
It's a vocation, not a profession. That's why you see these veterans still here year after year after year, because they are convinced they don't want to live in a world and they don't want to be human in such a way that they don't exercise their intellectual and political and social and cultural resources in some way to leave the world just a little better than it was when they entered.
That's, in part, what it means to be a leftist.
Now, what does that mean for me? It means for me in the United States -- and I go back now the 400 years to Jamestown. You all know this is the 400th anniversary of the first enduring English settlement in the new world. It was Roanoke before, but it didn't last. Jamestown last, right? And what do you have at Jamestown? The Virginia Club of London, an extension of the British Empire, makes its way over, the three boats whose names we need not go into at the moment. And what did they do? They interact with another empire, the Powhatan Empire, that's already in place, of indigenous peoples. You actually get the clash of empire. This is the age of empire.
But what are they here for? Looking for gold and silver and, secondarily, to civilize the natives.
So already you get America as a corporation, before it's a country. Corporate greed is already sitting at the center in terms of what is pushing it. And corporate greed, as Marx understood it, capital as a social relation, an asymmetrical relation of power, with bosses and workers, with those at the top who will be able to live lives of luxury and those whose labor will be both indispensable, necessary, but also exploited in order to produce that wealth.
Then there's religion, to "civilize" the indigenous people. Now, you can't talk about the US experience -- and I think in many ways this is true for the new world experience -- without talking about the dominant role of religion as an ideology. And we also know one of the reasons why vast numbers of our fellow citizens today in the United States, one of the reasons why they're not leftists, is precisely because they have not been awakened from their sleepwalking. They have not been convinced that they ought to choose to live a life the way we have chosen, in part because we've been cast with the mark of the anti-religious or the naively secular, or what have you.
And that's 98% of fellow citizens. So no matter what kind of political organization Brother Stanley is talking about, he's going to get Gramscian about it. He's got to dip into the popular culture of the everyday people, and 98% them are talking about God. That's 97.5% of fellow Americans believe in God.
75% believe Jesus Christ is the son of God. 62% believe they speak on intimate terms with God at least twice a day. That's who we're dealing with in terms of our fellow citizens. You can't talk about organization that's sustained over time, unless you're talking in Gramscian terms of how do you tease out leftist sentiment, vision, analysis, in light of the legacy of these dominant ideologies -- Christianity, Islam, Judaism, Buddhism, and so forth and so on.
But then, what else happens? 1619, you've got white slaves and you've got black slaves. You have the first representative assembly that takes place as modeled on the corporation, but it is attempt at democratic elections, the first representative assembly. They gathered July 30, 1619. They cancelled August 4, because it got too hot. And thirteen days later, here comes the boat with the first Africans. And at that time, slavery was not racialized. You had white slaves and you had black slaves.
But the white slaves, you look on the register, 1621, they had names like James Stewart and Charles McGregor. But you look on the right side and you see negro, negro, negro, negro. So even before slavery became a perpetual and inheritable structure of domination that would exploit the labor of Africans and devalue their sense of who they were and view their bodies as an abomination, you already had the black problematic of namelessness. White supremacy was already setting in as another dominant ideology to ensure that these working people do not come together.
And corporate greed would run amok in the midst of that kind of deep and profound division, which is not just a political division. It's a creation of different worlds, so that the de facto white supremacist segregation that would be part and parcel of the formation of the American Empire would constitute very different worlds and constitute a major challenge to what it means to be a leftist in America from 1776 up until 1963, given the overthrow of American apartheid, which took place in the '60s. And then, we now wrestle with the legacy, with the triumph of the Black Freedom Movement and all of the white and black -- I mean, the white and brown and yellow and Asian comrades who were part and parcel of that Black Freedom Movement that broke the back of American apartheid in the '60s.
What am I saying? I'm saying, in part, that at least for me to be a leftist these days, in the way in which -- and I take very seriously Antonio Gramsci's concern about the historical specificity of the emergeous sustenance and development and subsequent define of the American Empire. And when you actually look closely at that empire, it seems to me what we have to come to terms with is the fundamental role of corporate greed, religious ideologies, white supremacy, the fundamental rule of the popular culture, youth, and acknowledge that anytime you're talking about white supremacy, you're always already in some ways talking about the treatment of black women. And if you're concerned about the treatment of black women, you ought to be concerned about the treatment of women across the board. So the vicious ideologies, the patriarchy, come in. And the same thing would be true for the James Baldwins and the Audre Lordes, the gay brothers and the lesbian sisters.
Now, where does that leave us? Well, for me -- and you all know about the Covenant movement of Tavis Smiley, the book that was launched last year, went number one in the New York Times. We sold 400,000 copies within nine months, not reviewed by the New York Times, not touched by the Today Show. Even Oprah wouldn't breathe on it. And she can breathe on books and sell half a million these days, you know that? We just ask Sidney Poitier and Brother Elie Wiesel for that. But this book went underground.
Why? Because Tavis Smiley knows that in an American culture that is so thoroughly commodified, driven by corporate greed, thoroughly commercialized, driven by corporate greed, thoroughly marketized, driven by corporate greed, you have to be able to communicate in such a way that you might be able then to shake people from their sleepwalking, which he's done every year now on C-SPAN, and uses his position in order to raise issues of right to healthcare, community-based policing so you can deal with some of this police brutality, especially in black and brown communities of proletarian and lumpenproletarian character, and so forth.
You look in the New York Times last Sunday: volume two was number seven. 150,000 copies sold in three weeks. Three weeks. We just got off a 21-city tour. We did a 22-city tour last year. The book, not reviewed at all. Mainstream television won't touch it.
What is going on? Is the Ice Age beginning to melt? Is it the case that the thirty-five years that Brother Stanley talked about, the Ice Age, the historical period where it's fashionable to be indifferent to other people's suffering -- indifference is the very trait that makes the very angels weep, to be callus toward catastrophe. And it's true, New Orleans was catastrophic before Katrina hit. Flint, New Orleans without Katrina.
We can look at places in Brooklyn, Harlem, South Side of Chicago, barrios in East Los Angeles, white brothers and sisters in Kentucky, Appalachia, wrestling with catastrophic situations. Catastrophic situations.
Meaning what? Meaning that maybe we're at a moment now where there's going to be multiple strategies going on. It's clear that the Democratic Party remains clueless, visionless and spineless for the most part. Does that mean you give up on them? No, doesn't mean you give up on them, but you have to be honest with them. But it does allow one to, in some way -- and this is what I think Brother Rick Wolff was talking about in terms of the desegregation of the rightwing consensus, the unbelievable ways in which now rightwing fellow citizens are at each other's throats. The evangelical right wing can't stand the free marketeers, can't stand the balanced-budgeters.
That's fine. Let them fight. Let them fight. Let them go at each other. They're weakened in that way.
But what kind of alternative do have we? I don't have an answer to that. I don't think that the left has enough resources, has enough people to constitute a strong political organization, Stanley. We can argue over that. We just had drinks for two hours, so we've already had some discussion. I think that by raising the issue, it forces us to come to terms with who we really are.
That's what I like. That's Socratic. That's provocative.
Now, what we do with it, I don't know. I really don't. And the reason why I say that is because historically for me, you know, most of the kind of leftist movements tended to actually respond to reformist activity in which the struggle against white supremacy was a major catalyst. And so, when I think of all the work that I'm doing right now, especially in black America, but always, of course, tied to an instant coalition, leftist identity is not going to be the major means by which you get at people to wake up and come to terms with their social misery, be willing to stand up courageously, articulate vision, and most importantly, have a slice of people who are willing to live and die for a cause, you see, because they have other stories and other narratives that they use to do that.
So I would even argue, in some way, that Martin King and Fannie Lou Hamer were much more important than the Black Panther Party. They were actually building on what Martin and the others built, as much as I love Huey and Bobby Seale. They took it further. But the door was opened by these reformist activities. And what I would love to see is the radical reformism once more become fashionable among young people, and then allow the leftists to come in and do our thing. That's what I'm looking for.
_______
Cornel West, professor of religion and African- American studies at Princeton University speaking at the 2007 Left Forum in New York City.
http://www.zmag.org/content/showarticle.cfm?SectionID=41&ItemID=12363 |
Chrishayden
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Votes: 0 (Vote!) | | Posted on Wednesday, March 21, 2007 - 12:39 pm: |
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I heard a recording of this on Democracy Now, which I would recommend for anyone looking to find an alternative source of news.
Cornel is swimming against the tide. The U.S. no longer has a left. It has a center and a right. Everybody is conservative.
Nobody wants an equal society. Nobody wants everybody to have the same thing. Everybody is out for himself.
An old black man used to tell me, back in the 80's that everybody has gone money crazy. That's the only thing everybody in the country can agree on--they all want to be rich.
Cornel also is in a bad position to preach from his privileged position at Princeton.
See, that's where they get you. You stand up and talk about being a leftist. Being a progressive. A Marxist even. You go to work for the institutions that are the strongest supporters of the capitalist order.
Has Cornel forgone his perks? Has he shared his salary with the poor and the vulnerable he champions?
He hasnt.
Malcolm X, Jesus, and Martin Luther King were paupers. The idea that you can be a revolutionary and be part of the establishment is bogus.
Think about it. Suppose in order to reform and reorder society, you got to give up your first class seats on the plane. Your wine cellar. Your fine suits. Your nice car.
You ain't gonna do it. He ain't gonna do it.
Look at this society. This is the hand that has been dealt and we are going to play it out. |
Yukio
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Post Number: 2022
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Votes: 0 (Vote!) | | Posted on Wednesday, March 21, 2007 - 01:10 pm: |
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thats interesting...so in order to be a revolutionary...you have to give your money away....MLK was not a pauper...he was middle-class, with a ph.d, and his own congregation; in fact he only became a 'revolutionary' publicly after 1966 and as we all know he was a reluctant rebel, indeed...malcolm is another story, for he was a full time revolutionary...how do you know cornel w. hasn't given his money...i've heard he had, indeed from some of his former colleagues. but so what? does that now change his status...no! cosby has given his money too, but he aint revolutionary either...be revolutionary is certainly about giving back, but it is also about your stance on issues...and being a revolutionary only means that you want to turn what is upright upside down...thats it! |
Cynique
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Username: Cynique
Post Number: 7926
Registered: 01-2004
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Votes: 0 (Vote!) | | Posted on Wednesday, March 21, 2007 - 01:25 pm: |
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Hold the presses! Call 911! I agree with Chrishayden! It's one thing to define an existing problem; it's another thing to offer logical solutions that dissipate in the face of human frailities, a flaw personified by the pontificator who's providing the definition. And expecting Young Turks to step up and take the civil rights struggle to the next level would require an adherance to the of "business before pleasure" discipline; Lotsa luck... And you have to wonder how these philosophical designations came to be. The good intentions of those who veer from the center should be called "right". The etymology of the word "left" has to do with being sinister and ominous, something more in keeping with right-wingers who penalize the needy for being needy. So we know we're in trouble when the body politic couldn't even assign appropriate words to describe who is what. And what about the words, "white supremacy", a phrase bandied around as if it is contrary to the idea of everybody being equal. But white supremacy is not a misnomer; it is an organic reality. Whites are supreme at exploiting and victimizing other races. |
Yukio
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Username: Yukio
Post Number: 2023
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Votes: 0 (Vote!) | | Posted on Wednesday, March 21, 2007 - 02:15 pm: |
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there is nothing logical about revolution! |
Cynique
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Username: Cynique
Post Number: 7929
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Votes: 0 (Vote!) | | Posted on Wednesday, March 21, 2007 - 02:21 pm: |
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Is it illogical to want to overthrow your oppressors? Impossible maybe, but if revolution involves a strategy, it may very well encompass logic. |
Chrishayden
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Post Number: 3927
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Votes: 0 (Vote!) | | Posted on Wednesday, March 21, 2007 - 02:23 pm: |
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thats interesting...so in order to be a revolutionary...you have to give your money away....MLK was not a pauper...he was middle-class, with a ph.d, and his own congregation; in fact he only became a 'revolutionary' publicly after 1966 and as we all know he was a reluctant rebel, indeed
<<This shows the failure of the younger class. You say one dumb thing after another. The man died penniless. Millions of dollars went through his hands and he stole nothing. Harry Belefonte had to pay for his funeral. You know nothing. Ask. Don't tell.
And expecting Young Turks to step up and take the civil rights struggle to the next level would require an adherance to the of "business before pleasure" discipline; Lotsa luck
<Everybody wants theirs. It is only human nature. And it is only human nature to look at what someone is doing and call them on it if they aren't walking the walk.
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Tonya
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Votes: 0 (Vote!) | | Posted on Wednesday, March 21, 2007 - 06:28 pm: |
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Chris, I'm curious. Who DO you like and why? ...I’m looking for insight.
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Yukio
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Post Number: 2025
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Votes: 0 (Vote!) | | Posted on Wednesday, March 21, 2007 - 06:39 pm: |
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chrishayden:
yes, if we take the word literally. but if we think of his life--his upbring, his education, and especially how he got into the movement [involuntarily]--then aint nothing poor about him.
Beyond this exchange of semantics, what gives you the audacity to say, "you say one dumb thing after another." Name the first first dumb thing that I have said that is really relevant beyond whether he was a pauper or not [my point which you dare not address is that dying a pauper does not make one a revolutionary], and then indicate what light you have shed.
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Chrishayden
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Votes: 0 (Vote!) | | Posted on Thursday, March 22, 2007 - 10:34 am: |
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Yukio:
You are pathetic. The man got his brains blown out for the likes of you and you can't do anything but sit here and take potshots at him.
You must feel guilty. Whazzup? You been up there in the apple, trying to pass yourself off as a revolutionary? Take that game someplace else. You probably vacation in the Hamptons or Martha's Vineyard. Everybody is hip to your game. Grow up and sell out. |
Chrishayden
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Votes: 0 (Vote!) | | Posted on Thursday, March 22, 2007 - 10:35 am: |
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Chris, I'm curious. Who DO you like and why? ...I’m looking for insight.
(You don't need no insight. Quit trying to analyze me. I DEFY analysis.
But if you must know--
I like YOU!
Kissy kissy |
Yukio
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Post Number: 2028
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Votes: 0 (Vote!) | | Posted on Thursday, March 22, 2007 - 11:59 am: |
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ChrisHayden:
You use the word dumb, but you can't read. nowhere have I taken "potshots." Is it illiteracy or your proclivity to spit ad hominems...either way, you sound foolish and fooled. |
Schakspir
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Votes: 0 (Vote!) | | Posted on Thursday, March 22, 2007 - 02:40 pm: |
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I also agree with ChrisHayden that there isn't really that much of a left anymore in America, except a few well-meaning souls who stage impotent anti-war and anti-globalist demonstrations. But if you actually sat down and talked with these anti-war and anti-global people, you'd find that their thinking is actually to the right of your average sixties radical. They have no real sense of irreverence, they are very uptight and bourgeois in the worst kind of way. And a lot of them are even more racist towards non-whites(especially blacks)than these right-wing assholes--and totally spineless and clueless when it comes to confronting real power. |
Chrishayden
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Votes: 0 (Vote!) | | Posted on Thursday, March 22, 2007 - 02:58 pm: |
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You use the word dumb, but you can't read. nowhere have I taken "potshots." Is it illiteracy or your proclivity to spit ad hominems...either way, you sound foolish and fooled.
(I'm not fooled. You hate Dr. King. You hate old folks. You hate middle class blacks while no doubt being one. You probably hated Thelonious Monk, too.
Why can't you be more like me? LOVE is the answer, my brother.) |
Cynique
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Username: Cynique
Post Number: 7953
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Votes: 0 (Vote!) | | Posted on Thursday, March 22, 2007 - 03:30 pm: |
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The left has become a caricature of itself. Its politics have always brought to mind romantic images of "bohmemian" anti-establishment intellectuals contemptuous of the statu quo, stalwart in their regard for the plight of the underdog, all of which makes for good theatre for those who nowadays play the role of a leftist. The white liberal has also fallen along the wayside, rejected and dismissed by blacks who grew weary of their paternalistic attitudes implicit with the idea that they knew what was best for blacks. |
Yukio
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Votes: 0 (Vote!) | | Posted on Thursday, March 22, 2007 - 05:30 pm: |
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ad hominems...and so it goes on...
I respect MLK, btw. a pauper he was not.
a pauper, in its truest senst, is one of dem homeless cats w/no family and nothing to fall back on...
MLK was poor, but he had H. Belafonte to pay for his funeral; and if he lived, he would have lived well enogh, he would had his congregation, cadillac, been on the board of many organizations.
But I though u were claiming that C.West was not a revolutionary b/c he's part of the establishment, and that he aint poor...lets return to that!
Well, i had no comment about West being a revolutionary, to be one doesn't require you to die broke...so whats do dumb about that....ol wise one!
I love my elders, like Cynique and ABM....they're wise and ornery...your wisdom is sporadic, and your orneriness is omnipresent.
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Cynique
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Username: Cynique
Post Number: 7961
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Votes: 0 (Vote!) | | Posted on Thursday, March 22, 2007 - 06:49 pm: |
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What about Chrishayden, Yukio? LOL. He's your elder and full of sporadic wisdom. BTW, my goal is not to woo wisdom or approval. It's simply to "kibitz". |
Yukio
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Post Number: 2040
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Votes: 0 (Vote!) | | Posted on Thursday, March 22, 2007 - 07:19 pm: |
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what about ChrisHayden? He is ornery full throttle...., but smart, he's like a young but older than I uncle who is a little jealous...LOL!
you, on the other hand, are my loving, unconditional, cynical eastern philosophical aunty....
and abm and I have an avuncular relationship, i think...he's the know-it-all who is both well read but still quite youthful, so we could hang out--and if you catch him the right evening and liquor him up, he may agree with you...LOL!
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Cynique
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Username: Cynique
Post Number: 7965
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Votes: 0 (Vote!) | | Posted on Thursday, March 22, 2007 - 09:08 pm: |
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Well, babe, the last ol aunty heard, the hornery Chrishayden was 55 years old. LOL. |
Yukio
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Post Number: 2041
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Votes: 0 (Vote!) | | Posted on Thursday, March 22, 2007 - 09:37 pm: |
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hey...i said ornery not horny...LOL! yeah...thats waaaayyyyy older than me! LOL! |
Mzuri
"Cyniquian" Level Poster
Username: Mzuri
Post Number: 4142
Registered: 01-2006
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Votes: 0 (Vote!) | | Posted on Thursday, March 22, 2007 - 10:29 pm: |
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You either get old or die, Yukio. |
Cynique
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Username: Cynique
Post Number: 7969
Registered: 01-2004
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Votes: 0 (Vote!) | | Posted on Thursday, March 22, 2007 - 10:34 pm: |
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Ooops. snicker. |
Yukio
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Post Number: 2044
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Votes: 1 (Vote!) | | Posted on Thursday, March 22, 2007 - 10:46 pm: |
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your sagacity escapes me, Mzuri...wisdom doesn't necessarily come w/age...unfortunately! |
Mzuri
"Cyniquian" Level Poster
Username: Mzuri
Post Number: 4143
Registered: 01-2006
Rating:
Votes: 1 (Vote!) | | Posted on Thursday, March 22, 2007 - 10:59 pm: |
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My comment has nothing to do with wisdom, it has to do with life. You either get old or die, one or the other. And you get older faster than you think, and you die before you know it. Get it? 
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Yukio
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Username: Yukio
Post Number: 2046
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Votes: 1 (Vote!) | | Posted on Thursday, March 22, 2007 - 11:15 pm: |
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got it, but my discussion w/cynique was about something else... |
Abm
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Username: Abm
Post Number: 9011
Registered: 04-2004
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Votes: 0 (Vote!) | | Posted on Friday, March 23, 2007 - 04:32 pm: |
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Yukio,
Yukio: "abm and I have an avuncular relationship, i think...he's the know-it-all who is both well read but still quite youthful, so we could hang out--and if you catch him the right evening and liquor him up, he may agree with you...LOL!"
Hahahahahaha!!!!
Plus. If you shut up and listen fer long enuff, ol’ uncle ABM might teach you how to get in Tonya’s pants in spite all her skrong Black WOEman rant. |
Yukio
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Username: Yukio
Post Number: 2060
Registered: 01-2004
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Votes: 0 (Vote!) | | Posted on Friday, March 23, 2007 - 09:11 pm: |
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Yes sir! LOL! |
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