E-mail a friendDr. Cornel West
original airdate January 12, 2007
A renowned scholar, Princeton professor Dr. Cornel West has written/edited more than 20 books, including Race Matters and Democracy Matters. He's also been described as an "intellectual provocateur" outside of academia, with lectures, TV and film appearances and his spoken-word CDs. West's latest disc, "Never Forget: A Journey of Revelations"—a collaborative effort with such talent as Prince, Talib Kweli, Jill Scott, Andre 3000 and the late Gerald Levert—combines hip-hop and intellectual dialogue.
Cornel West on the "Santa Clausification" of Martin Luther King, Jr.
Dr. Cornel West
Tavis: I'm always pleased and honored to welcome Dr. Cornel West to this program. He is one of America's great thinkers and I believe America's leading public intellectual. He is, of course, a distinguished Professor of Religion at Princeton. His many notable books include "Keeping Faith," "Race Matters," most recently "The New York Times" bestseller now out in paperback, "Democracy Matters." Next week, I expect among other places, you'll be a speaker at the annual Martin Luther King, Jr. Week for Peace. Dr. West, as always, what a pleasure to have you on this program.
Cornel West: What a blessing for me.
Tavis: Glad to have you here. I assume your schedule is like mine. You must get really busy around this time of the year.
West: Oh, yeah. Oh, indeed. A lot of Black folk running around trying to keep the blood-stained banner alive in the name of justice, my brother. Very much so.
Tavis: When you think of Dr. King, what is for you his enduring legacy? The enduring legacy?
West: Well, that's a question. But let me begin by this, though, brother. I think that when it comes to mass media, this particular show enacts the legacy because what you have been able to do, Tavis. The reason why I believe you're the most brilliant talk show host on television is that you bring together high-quality, Socratic questioning with highly mature, active listening.
So when you fuse critical intelligence with empathy - and that's Martin - Socratic and prophetic with a democratic end, which is to say that you respect each and every person as one made in the image of God, equal before the law, but an everyday person, and in your exchange, you respect them enough to listen and then, in your utterance, you take them serious enough to challenge them.
You see, brother Martin was really about the fusion of the Socratic and the prophetic with democratic ends. So that particular legacy, I think, is found in a variety of different contexts, but when it comes to a market-driven mass media, it's a rare thing to find that kind of Socratic questioning and the active listening which is an example of a certain kind of empathy.
Tavis: You're kind. I appreciate that.
West: I mean, I think it's very important because you see a lot of chit-chat about Martin every year and Martin has been so domesticated and tamed and defamed, you know, what we call the Santa Clausification of the brother.
Tavis: Wait a minute. Hold the phone, hold the phone. The Santa Clausification of Dr. King, which means what, Dr. West?
West: He just becomes a nice little old man with a smile with toys in his bag, not a threat to anybody, as if his fundamental commitment to unconditional love and unarmed truth does not bring to bear certain kinds of pressure to a status quo. So the status quo feels so comfortable as though it's a convenient thing to do rather than acknowledge him as to what he was, what the FBI said, "The most dangerous man in America." Why? Because of his fundamental commitment to love and to justice and trying to keep track of the humanity of each and every one of us.
Tavis: Talking to you is kind of like talking to Dr. Angelo who comes here often. We move around and cover so much territory, so let me do the same thing with you obviously. Let me jump forward and then we'll come back again. When you talk about the Santa Clausification - I got to wrestle with that - the Santa Clausification of Dr. King, could the same thing be said in a contemporary sense of a guy named Nelson Mandela?
West: Oh, absolutely, absolutely. In fact, when I was there and spoke at his birthday celebration, I talked about the Santa Clausification of Nelson Mandela. What happens is, again, in the market-driven world in which celebrity status operates in such a way that it tries to diffuse all of the threat and to sugarcoat and deodorize what actually is rather funky. I say that in the name of James Brown, the legacy of James Brown, right?
We have to be clear that, when we're talking about towering freedom fighters like a Nelson Mandela or a James Brown, I'll say the same thing about Rabbi Abraham Joshua Heschel and others, these folk are such powerful forces that are threats to powers that be. Of course, Jesus is a grand example; I'll speak as a Christian. And, of course, we've seen Jesus being Santa Clausified the last two thousand years.
Tavis: Certainly during the Christmas season.
West: Oh, Lord. Deodorized, manicured, sterilized and yet there's the blood constituting major threats. Why? Because love and justice is a serious thing in a world that's obsessed with fear, hatred and greed, and that's very much what we're talking about. I think for you and I, though, Tavis, brother Martin, of course, we dedicate our lives to making the world safe for his legacy.
It's just a question of what does it really mean to be a free human being and specifically what does it mean to be a free Black man who mustered the courage to both love beginning with himself and others who look like him and others who don't look like him? He's a human, but he also knows that he must confront America.
One way of characterizing Martin is he's a free Negro who resists niggerization because a nigger is an American invention to make sure these human beings are intimidated, scared, divided, distrustful of one another, feeling powerless, feeling impotent, feeling that they can never fundamentally make a difference. That's what a nigger is. It was invented in America. Abe Lincoln himself has this little line in his journal of February 1859, his lecture on the invention of the Negro, fifteenth century.
Tavis: This is Lincoln.
West: Abe Lincoln. Lincoln is honest. He's an honest brother.
Tavis: Speaking of the fact that this construct was created.
West: Absolutely. And Martin says, "I'm a self-loving Negro who resists niggerization. I'm a free Black man who resists dehumanization." Of course, the invention of niggers was grounded in what? White fear, white hatred and white greed. So Martin has to say, "You know what? I refuse to be fearful, I refuse to hate back and I refuse to be greedy."
Instead of the fear, I'm going to enact a what? A boldness. Instead of the hatred, I'm going to enact what? A love. Instead of the greed, I'm going to enact what? A giving. And not just any giving, but the highest form of giving, which is forgiving. He's even forgiven O'Connor and others. What a rich legacy. Any time we mention that brother's name, we ought to shout it because that's the kind of challenge he presents to us and to each one of us, no matter what color, creed, sexual orientation, gender and so on.
Tavis: One of the things that worries me - you and I are both on a lecture circuit ad nauseam during this time of the year, King's birthday, all the way through the end of Black history, but you're on the road all the time. Certainly this time of the year is a busy period for anybody Black on the lecture circuit. I'm always concerned about the fact that we take - I think Martin is the greatest American we've ever produced. I've told you that before.
West: Absolutely.
Tavis: But I also fear, to the contrary, that when we raise certain Black heroes and heroines so high, almost to the level of deity, that it says to young people that you can't appropriate their courage, that you can't do, that you can't be, because Martin was so special, Rosa was so special, Harriet was so special, that we somehow suggest to them, although maybe unwittingly, that they're so special that you can't be that person.
Now I raise that only because, one, I want your thought about whether you agree or disagree on that. But the second reason why I raise it is because I wondered then what it means for everyday people, as Sly Stone would say, what it means for everyday people to be free in the world that we live in today. What does it mean to fundamentally be a free human being, saying nothing of a Black American?
West: Well, brother, you raised a number of crucial questions. Let me first start by trying to respond to what you said regarding Martin being put on a pedestal. Martin was a human being. Featherless, two-legged, linguistically conscious creature born within urine and feces like anybody else, and he died just like us. Creature, flesh and blood.
Now what did that mean? It means, then, that he's part of a tradition. He's not some isolated icon because all human beings are dependent on Momma for nine months at least and then loved ones and then networks, schools, temples, churches, synagogues, apprenticeship networks and so forth.
So Martin in that way, in the language of Robert Moses, he's more a wave than an ocean than he is an isolated icon. A lot of our young people see Martin as just as item in a museum rather than part of a vital and vibrant tradition, part of an ocean. So there's no Martin without his Momma, his Grandmamma, his professors at Morehouse and the theological seminary and Boston University.
Same is true for yourself. Same is true for myself and so on, right? So then the question comes, well, what do then I tell young people? What do I tell my son and my daughter? I say he was a human being who mustered incredible courage to think for himself, free, against the grain. You have to be able to think for yourself. You have to be able to cut against the grain, get the distance from your peer group.
Not only that, but, Tavis, you have to have an habitual vision of greatness, you see. You have to believe in fact that you will refuse to settle for mediocrity. You won't confuse financial security with your personal integrity. You won't confuse your success with your greatness or your prosperity with your magnanimity. If you have a vision of greatness as something that's luring you all the time for something grander than you and, of course, as a Christian, for me, he who is great will be -
Tavis: - your servant.
West: Quality of your service to others. Do you find joy in your service to others? Do you actually believe, in fact, that living is connected to giving? Now some people might not opt for that. They'll say, "No, I'm the hedonistic, narcissistic, individualistic type and that's a lot to ask."
Tavis: (Laughter) "That's just who I am," right?
West: That's right. "I'm not into that kind of stuff." I say, that's fine, that's fine. I choose to attempt to pursue this road. I'll fall on my face. We all do. Crooked heart, crooked neighbor, had a crooked heart, going to learn how to love the crooked neighbor. That's part of the challenge for those of us likened to a certain Christian tradition.
We Christians have no monopoly on truth, no monopoly on goodness and so forth and so on. We believe Jesus Christ is the truth, but we also know in fact that varieties of religious traditions have some things to say that we can learn. Therefore, especially citizens in a democratic society, we want to have equality of persons before the law no matter what religious or non-religious views they have.
Tavis: Let me go back, though. You make this distinction that I want to give myself a chance to catch up with. This distinction between success and greatness. You went right past that so profound distinction. Talk to me about the difference between success and greatness.
West: I think success is worldly in terms of the American dream and is often characterized as pecuniary gain and financial prosperity, economic status, living in the big vanilla suburb, living large, and the bling-bling that goes along with it. Now we all know that we all need money, we all need financial resources and so forth. But we also know how that can easily become not just idolatrous, but it can become poisonous to one's soul.
You know that wonderful essay written by the white literary blues man, Tennessee Williams. After "The Glass Menagerie" in 1947, he wrote a fascinating essay called "The Catastrophe of Success." Actually a biography of Frank Capra that is a very negative biography. I didn't like it, but I liked Capra. It did reveal some things. But it was titled "The Catastrophe of Success." Meaning what? That if in fact you're not spiritually, politically, morally prepared to deal with success, then a catastrophe can follow thereafter and in fact it can blind you in your own quest for greatness.
Because if in fact all you actually think life is about is needing pleasures and these commodities and you think you can possess your soul by means of possessing commodities, you've got some existential emptiness and spiritual malnutrition waiting for you. I don't care where it is. I know we here in Hollywood, maybe I should shout that out. You know what I mean?
Hollywood doesn't suffer from it in any disproportionate way. It's also among the destitute because the destitute have like a fetishism of commodities, a fetishism of success. All I need is success and then somehow I'm a better person. I'm more human. People will accept me even if I don't have it. Well, that's just as bad as achieving a success and discovering you're living in the mansion all by yourself alone unable to make any kind of qualitative relations.
Tavis: We got so much to talk about. Let me just throw a few names at you. We were off the air for a couple of weeks at the end of the year. One of the things that just troubled my spirit at the end of year specifically, but as I look back on last year, we lost some greats.
We lost a lot of greats, but while I have you here as one who's learned it in African American studies and teaches it, let me just throw a few names at you if I can of some greats that we lost last year as we start this year and just get your quick take on a few of them in no particular order. What a tragedy it was, at forty years of age, to lose Gerald Levert.
West: The great Gerald Levert, the great soul singer of his generation. We listened to good stuff. We listened to "Pop, Pop, Pop Goes My Mind" and "Casanova." Gerald himself, of course, wrote some of those beautiful songs. I think "Season" will be and remain a classic forever and, of course, we salute brother Eddie Levert, his blessed family. Gerald was my dear friend. We were on his album. He's on my album that's forthcoming. I just thank God he was around for forty years, but oh, we miss him so much now.
Tavis: Lou Rawls.
West: Yeah, Lou has soul stirs replacing him and the inimitable Sam Cooke. He had a voice that was so incandescent that he reminded you a little bit of Nat King Cole in terms of the precision of his pronunciation of words and so forth. But he was so suave and so cool. You know, Rawls had what the great Black musicians have, the Black preachers have, which is the elegance of earned self-togetherness.
It's a wonderful phrase that Albert Murray uses in his book, "Stomping the Blues." The elegance of earned self-togetherness. That means that you've got a self-confidence. You've got an elegance about you. You have a sense of being able to persevere whatever the circumstances are, but do it with dignity, with grace. Not putting others down, you see. Lou Rawls had that and, of course, getting that is part of a tradition.
Tavis: Speaking of staying in the "sho'nuf," James Brown.
West: James Brown. Like Thomas Harding, the greatest poet novelist in the English language in modern times. They both were born dead. Both of them announced "presumed dead" when they were born.
Tavis: James Brown was born still-born.
West: May 3, 1933, Barnwell, South Carolina. If it wasn't for his Aunt Minnie who breathed the breath into him. His father, Joe, was crying. His mother, Susie, was crying. Aunt Minnie breathing the breath into James, but then that cry. Yeah, he was crying ever since, screaming ever since with his dreams. Nobody like this little brother. He brought the funk and what did he do? He taught us that there's sublime beauty in the funk and a deep love in the funk.
There's a dangerous freedom in the funk if you're willing to get down there and wrestle with it. Of course, that meant what? He had to be himself. That takes tremendous courage to be yourself. In fact, in some ways, it takes more courage to be yourself, to look closely at the dark corners of your own soul, than it does for a soldier to fight on the battlefield, little brother.
Tavis: Can't talk about Martin as we approach his holiday without talking about Coretta.
West: Yeah, Coretta Scott King. What a profound love she had not just for brother Martin Luther King, Jr., but for all humanity, for her blessed children, and what level of dignity and grace she enacted decade after decade after decade. Not just out of her loyalty to Martin, but she and Martin were wedded to something bigger than both of them, which is a vision for a better humanity. Of course, we cannot downplay their Christian faith, a vision of a kingdom that would keep track of the better angels of their nature as they made their trek from womb to tomb.
Tavis: At the beginning of the year, we spend an inordinate amount of time in the media conducting conversations that are essentially about trying to empower people to figure it out so they can get it right. We use that phrase all the time, "A new year is an opportunity for a new you." But how do you go about figuring it out? That is to say, what your purpose, what your calling, what your vocation is. How do you go about figuring it out so that you can take advantage of this year that you've been blessed with to get it right?
West: The gift of time is something that is a precious thing. On the one hand, it's tick-tick-tick-tick and lost. On the other hand, it's possibility, possibility, possibility. I think part of it has to do with trying to get outside of one's self. I think part of our problem, though, Tavis, is that we live in such a market-driven world in which narcissistic frenzy and hedonist fury is coming at us and it seeps through every nook and cranny of who we are.
I think one of the best ways of talking about resolutions is to try to connect it to some other folk. What are we going to do better for others? What are we going to do for God, for justice, for freedom, for equality, something that will take us outside of ourselves, but at the same time, we are involved in it? So we partake of something grander than us, but it doesn't erode or erase our individuality because we are participating in it in that way.
I think one thing, especially as it relates to your wonderful show, the brothers just ought to try to be more critically informed. You think about the government. Let's get involved in some serious critical reflection about it. Not just the Bush administration, but the relation of corporate elites and the two parties themselves. What kinds of truths are being put forward? What kind of discussions are taking place? Then on a moral level, does it focus on working people? Does it focus on poor people? Where is our discussion on prison industrial complex? Where is our discussion on workers' wages and so forth and so on?
I mean, that for me is something beyond just the individualistic conceptions of New Year's resolutions and begins to connect us with something much larger. How do you keep this fragile, democratic experiment afloat? How does it relate to our imperial presence in Iraq and so forth and so on?
Tavis: On that point, let me ask you right quick. How, in fact, does this relate - we heard what President Bush had to say earlier this week about his new way forward in Iraq. But how can we do a better job of being a member of this world community? It's a large question.
West: Well, one thing you have to do is you have to get off your high horse and deal with your arrogance and your hubris. You have to be honest about yourself. Dependence on oil and the role of oil companies, on the one hand. You have to talk honestly about the relation between our conception of ourselves as a free nation and how other nations themselves are involved in their own attempt to be free.
Beginning with Latin America with the Monroe Doctrine where we treated Latin America like it was a back yard doing anything we wanted to do and so forth and so on. But also being very, very honest about fairness. The Middle East, the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.
How do we affirm our Jewish brothers and sisters and say that Israel must have security, and we affirm our Palestinian brothers and sisters and say that Palestinians must have justice? How do we bring together the security on the one hand, crucial to the Jews, the despised and hated people for so long, and the justice for Palestinians? Why? Because they're human beings like anybody else. Does America have what it takes to have a discussion about them? We're just talking about a dialog about that, you see.
Well, those things require what? People willing to pay a price, bear a burden. If you think it's cost-free, if you think there's no price to be paid, then it's easy to slide back into conformity, complacency, and that goes hand in hand with our market-driven narcissistic, hedonistic society where more and more people are concerned just about getting over as opposed to being a better, more decent, compassionate human being.
Tavis: Are you hopeful that this generation can get it right? You teach these minds every day.
West: Well, brother, I'll tell you. I'm a legatee of not just Martin Luther King, Jr., but also Cliff and Irene West, but also John Coltrane and Anton Chekhov, which means I'm never optimistic. The evidence always looks under-determined, but I am full of hope. Never give up on any human being, no matter what color and so forth, because I believe they have potential. In that sense, it's a kind of, you know, blues-inflicted hope rather than a cheap American optimism that motivates me, my brother.
Tavis: What a blessing to have him here just to talk. His latest book is "The New York Times" bestseller now in paperback, "Democracy Matters." His name, of course, Cornel West. Dr. West, Happy New Year. Good to see you.
West: What a blessing, though. Number four. Congratulations there, brother.
Tavis: Thank you. I appreciate it. Number four.
West: Absolutely.
Tavis: That's our show for tonight. You can catch me on the weekends on PRI, Public Radio International. Our radio podcast available at tavistalks.com. I'll see you back here next time, though, on PBS. Until then, good night from Los Angeles. Thanks for watching and, as always, keep the faith.
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