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Dr. West explains his clash with former Harvard president Larry Summers. (3:24)
 

Full Interview (24:37)
 

Tavis: Always pleased, honored and delighted to welcome Dr. Cornel West to this program. The university professor at Princeton is one of the country's leading public intellectuals and of course a perennial best-sellering author.

His latest is a poignant memoir - he finally got around to telling his life story. It's called "Brother West: Living and Loving Out Loud." And full disclosure here, the book is published by Smiley Books.

Dr. West, as always, an honor to have you on the program.

Dr. Cornel West: Brother, it is always a blessing to be here, and I want to thank you for being such a wonderful brother to me.

Tavis: Brother, I'm just glad to have you here.

West: Seeing you adds years to my life, brother, I'll tell you that right now. (Laughter)

Tavis: I'll take that, as your life adds to mine. Before I get into the text, and we've got the whole show to work this out - before I get into the book, though, I was in a conversation about you with somebody the other day, and not just you but a number of Black intellectuals, their names came up in this conversation.

I thought I would start our conversation, before I get to the book, by asking you in the era of Obama what is the role of the Black intellectual?

West: The role of any intellectual, any color, any civilization, any culture, is the same - any regime, any administration: Tell the truth with humility, be willing to bear the costs, and then bear witness to justice. And for me, accenting the least of these, beginning with the orphan, the widow, the poor, the marginalized, working people, gay brothers, lesbian sisters, elderly across the board.

And that's true in the age of Obama, it was true in the age of Reagan, it was true in the age of Roosevelt, and if I had lived, it was true in the age of Lincoln. I would have been right there with Brother Frederick Douglass.

Tavis: Yeah. The difference, of course, this time around is that Black intellectuals have a Black president they have to critique. Let me ask again in that regard, what's the role of the Black intellectual?

West: You've still got to tell the truth. When Obama's right, you praise him; when he's wrong, you criticize him. You do it out of love, but most importantly in the end it's not about Barack Obama. It's about the precious and priceless working people, poor people, fellow citizens who deserve fairness and who deserve to live a life of decency and dignity.

If we have now a president who is head of the American empire, we have to make sure that there's democratic activities, democratic procedures, rule of law in place, and it ought to tilt toward those who have been marginalized, especially during the age of Reagan, where we had, of course, the indifference toward the poor, the greed running amok, and the polarizing of the body politic.

So that somebody like myself, for example, who of course was a critical supporter of Barack Obama, when I see that he's not accenting poor people and working people, we have to tell the truth and say, "You're tilting toward the well-to-do. Why are you mesmerized by Wall Street? Why are you in love with the establishment? What about working people? Why bailing out the bankers, and what about working people," and so forth.

And you say that out of love, because you know in some ways that he comes out of a history of community organizing. He knows what you're talking about, you see. But in that sense it's a matter of just bearing witness to one's own calling, because being an intellectual is a beautiful thing. It's like being a blues man, like being a jazz man.

You find your voice, you find your calling, you have your vision, you give it all, and when you die, you are used up. You have done everything you possibly could to be true to who you are, and you had a whole lot of fun in the meantime.

Tavis: While we're talking about the Obama administration, though, you later in this book finally get around to telling in detail what happened with Larry Summers. Larry Summers, of course, Treasury secretary during the Clinton administration, left there, went on to become president of Harvard.

You all had a run-in at Harvard, for lack of a better phrase. He of course is now back in the White House, running the economic team. In short, and there's a whole chapter on this, what is your version of what happened with Larry Summers at Harvard that caused you to leave and to go to Princeton?

West: Well, it was just a matter of just colossal failure to treat someone with decency, and I think that's a challenge for Brother Larry Summers. I've forgiven him, I'm a Christian, I don't go about trashing and demonizing people, but I keep track of people who have difficulty treating other people with decency.

If I walk in the office using profanity, attacking me, saying I missed classes when I never missed one class, saying that I had contributed to grade inflation - I never contributed to grade inflation - saying my CD was an embarrassment.

Well, I love young people and I love Black people and young Brown people who create this great hip-hop movement. And the question is, as an educator I want singing education as well as a textual education. So I intervene in hip-hop culture.

And the same was true in terms of a candidate I support that no one respects. Which one? Ralph Nader or Al Sharpton? I love both of those brothers. (Laughter) You see what I mean?

And I stand accused. I support people who look at the world, for me, as a Christian, through the eyes of the cross, and for others through the eyes of poor people, working people, those friends (unintelligible) call the wretched of the earth.

And that is a calling; it's not just a career. So that when I saw that kind of disrespect I knew I had a problem, but when I met the second time and he said - he apologized to me privately, he told "The New York Times" he didn't apologize, I said, "Wait a minute - I'm dealing with an unprincipled brother. I've got to go," because my life is too short.

I don't have time to deal with people who lack that kind of integrity, tell me one thing and tell "The New York Times" something else. I find out somebody in "The New York Times" was on the phone and said, "Ah, he was lying." I said, "Whoa, no."

So I was deeply surprised when I saw President Obama, Brother Barack, chose Larry Summers. Larry Summers has no history of being concerned with poor people or working people. He was supporting the deregulation of markets, that he'd been part of the Robert Rubin group that's been very neo-liberal in terms of his economic policies have been tilted toward the well-to-do, tied to investment bankers.

We know now as president he was making money on hedge funds. He's criticizing me for making a CD; he's making millions of dollars on hedge funds. That's hypocrisy.

Now, I think Brother Barack was just completely mesmerized by the acceptance of the establishment, and of course Larry Summers is a brilliant brother. But see, as a person who comes out of Sacramento, California, comes out of the West family, Cliff West, Irene West, Cliff, Cynthia, Cheryl, Zatune, daughter, little Cliff, son, I'm not impressed just by smartness and braininess.

I want wisdom, I want compassion, I want vision, I want commitment, especially to working poor people. So I think Barack was mesmerized by Larry Summers' brilliance and ends up, I think, now in some ways captive to neo-liberal policy, and it's a very dangerous thing. I wish he'd listened to Paul Krugman and Joseph Stiglitz and some of the others.

Tavis: Speaking of smartness and braininess, we know you; I've introduced you many times, no secret here. I think that you are the Du Bois of our time. I think you're America's leading public intellectual, certainly at the very top of that list. You can put Krugman and others on the list. That's my own assessment, and that's neither here nor there.

West: Well, that's very kind.

Tavis: But I raise that because we know you as an intellectual, obviously, but when you go back to the early years of Cornel West's life, fascinating story.

First of all, you weren't known as Cornel West originally. What'd they call you growing up in Sacramento?

West: They called me little Ronnie.

Tavis: Little Ronnie.

West: Glen Elder, Sacramento, chocolate slice of Sacramento. I was little Ronnie.

Tavis: How did you end up being called little Ronnie?

West: Because my name is Cornel Ronald West.

Tavis: Cornel Ronald West.

West: And everybody knew me as little Ronnie when I was born in Tulsa, same hospital as the Gap Band, Greenwood, Archer and Pine Wilson brothers, (singing) there goes my baby. (Laughter) Whoa, Lord have mercy. Woo, still sounding deep. He's Tulsan, just like me.

Moved to Topeka, Cynthia's born, then we go to Sacramento. So I'm really Californian in spirit, deeply Californian, West Coast to the core.

Tavis: So they called you little Ronnie because -

West: But little Ronnie was a gangster, I was a thug. I had a depth of rage in me that was inexplicable. I had the most magnificent father, been dead 15 years; I'll never be half the man he is. Mom, Irene, because you know mom, she's your mother, too. Elementary school named after her.

The most magnificent parents, but I was still full of rage. I could not find a way of channeling that rage, so I was Robin Hood. I was Robin Hood. All-Black school, if (unintelligible) had a lot and Sister Linda didn't, there was a redistribution of goods. (Laughter)

Tavis: So as a kid, this is -

West: It was Robin Hood to the core.

Tavis: So you were literally taking, as a kid, from the kids who had and giving in school to the kids who had not.

West: That's true, by force. Force. Wrong as two left shoes, but couldn't help myself. I couldn't stand to see these sisters and brothers not have anything, you know what I mean?

I don't know where it came from. It probably came from Shiloh, where I've always aspired to be a redeemed sinner, because that's the best we can be. Cracked vessels, crooked hearts trying to love our crooked neighbors.

But I aspired to be a saint, but a funky saint, and a funky saint looks at the world through the lens of the heart and has a hypersensitivity to the suffering of other people. And it was then I could just feel that this is not right; it needs to be set right.

Tavis: Then one day you got into a fight - talking about that rage. Here you are as a kid - now, this is the loving Cornel West as a kid, you're getting in fights with other students, and one day you got into a fight with your teacher.

West: Yeah. Brother, I was a gangster, I was a thug, and I still have gangster proclivities now. I just have ways of -

Tavis: Let me back up then, yeah. (Laughter) Let me slide.

West: (Unintelligible) on me, you know what I mean? (Laughter) That's why Jesus on the cross mean much to me, though, brother - preserve my sanity. But what happened was that I had gone to Jim Crow, Texas, because Mom grew up in Orange, Texas, with Big Daddy, and his picture's in there with T-Rose, who's still alive in Sacramento, God bless her.

And I was told of a great-uncle who had been lynched and they wrapped his body with the U.S. flag. So when I went back to Sacramento to get up and pledge allegiance to the flag, I said, "I'm not pledging allegiance to that flag."

Tavis: You're in what grade now?

West: Third grade.

Tavis: Third grade. You refused to pledge allegiance to the flag.

West: That's right. And Mrs. Ye (sp), God bless her, she's sweet as she could be, she walked over and said, "Yes, you are." I said, "No, I'm not." And she slapped me so hard, and I had a counter-punch.

Tavis: For Ms. Ye.

West: And I hit Ms. Ye pretty hard, and next thing you know Cliff and all his partners came in because the principal had jumped on me, and we had a little riot right there. And it's true that schools wouldn't take me for a while. Mom was kind enough to give me an IQ test and I got 100 and something, 165 or 8 or something, they said, "Well, this little negro has some potential."

Sent me to a school for gifted children on the other side of town, Earl Warren, and I met two wonderful sisters, two magnificent White sisters, Nona Sol (sp) and Cecilia Angel, who were just so kind to me and nurtured me.

And so for me, you see, my life is really the power of love. But the other is the power of paideia the power of education, the power of learning, you see. How we shift from the frivolous to the serious to superficial to the substantial. How do we actually cultivate a self that allows us to wrestle with reality and history and memory and mortality?

And the power of love and the power of paideia came together, turned me around, and since then I've been in love with the life of the mind. That's why I call myself a blues man in the life of the mind; in love with the world of ideas, call myself a jazz man in the world of ideas.

Tavis: It's love, it's education, and those themes run all through the book.

West: Absolutely.

Tavis: And I love it because for parents who have kids now who are acting out, for lack of a better phrase, here's an example of how that can turn around for you through education and through love.

That said, it's not just those two things, it's also sports. People look at you and might not think, with the three-piece black suit and the 'fro, they might not think of you as an athlete, but it is true that you set a record in high school that is still unbroken up in Sacramento?

West: Well I think somebody may have broken it recently, but I set a record in the two-mile run. We ran across the country. We had a magnificent coach, Brother Bill Mayhan (sp), a White brother. Oh, he loved Cliff and he loved Cornel. He's still alive. He's a magnificent person.

Picked us up early in the morning, we'd put in five miles, 10 miles and so forth. Cliff, of course, greatest athlete. And Cliff, as you know, is me and I'm him. You pinch him, I feel it. You cut him, I bleed. That's how close we are.

And so I'm with him all the time. He taught me how to read, he taught me how to have style, he taught me the model of what it is to be cool. And so I'm running with him and find out he's setting all the records and I'm setting records at the same time, but he's at a much higher level.

He goes on the NCAA and Olympic trials and so forth. But running for me - sports for me was just so crucial. I think again it was channeling that rage that I had. It gave me a sense of discipline. It shows the degree to which sports, when it's rightly done, allows us to engage in a course of what the Greeks call arête, excellence.

It shapes our character; it allows us to gain access to certain kinds of virtues. And when you really think of sports, and then I had the girls, now - that was central to my life.

Tavis: That is central in this book.

West: Very much so.

Tavis: A whole bunch of them.

West: And that was juxtaposed to Shiloh Baptist Church and in many ways the music, because (unintelligible) without James Brown and David Ruffin and Eddie Kendricks and Aretha Franklin and Gladys Knight, and the Emotions and the Whispers and the Dramatics, I would have hurt somebody. (Laughter)

Tavis: Tell me about the days -

West: Those Negroes preserved my sanity. (Laughter) I'll tell you that right now.

Tavis: Before I move off this sports thing, there's a great picture in the book. Tell me about the day - you and your brother Cliff are excellent cross-country track stars. Cliff, again, as you said, goes on to run at Cal Berkeley.

West: Absolutely.

Tavis: Tell me about the day that Jesse Owens came to your house.

West: Yeah, that was something, though, man. Because see, when we first moved out to South Land Park Drive, they had the open housing building. Ronald Reagan was governor. Ronald Reagan opposed civil rights, voting rights, and open housing, which meant he supported Jim Crow, see what I mean?

Well, we had fought that. We were the first Black family to move from Glen Elder to this new place, so it was a hostile place. It was like "Raisin in the Sun" all over again, that classic by Lorraine Hansberry. But there was a White brother named Tom Hogday (sp) who lived next door who was head of the Golden West, of the club called 20/20. He invited Cliff and I. So we two Negroes, two almost ink spots in this Whiteness, and the brother was kind as he could be.

And the honorary patron was Jesse Owens - the one and only inimitable Jesse Owens. And this brother was so wonderful, man. Oh, he had a lovely spirit. And he told Cliff, he said, "You going to win the Golden West next year." Now, Cliff had the chance of a snowball in hell (laughter) of winning that race.

Tavis: But Jesse Owens told him he could.

West: Jesse Owens told him he could, and Cliff won it that next year. You see what happens when you affirm people? The book is in some ways a series of praise songs, and I like that. I know sister Cheryl Woodruff, president of SmileyBooks, played a very important role in this regard, and of course David Rich, he's the best when it comes to capturing voice, and I applaud him in that regard.

And I thank God for Sister Mary Ann Rodriguez, my marvelous assistant, also for being part of that team coordinating this, and Brother Colby Hamilton. And there's no doubt in my mind that this book is a kind of acknowledgment of not just the power of love and the power of paideia or education and learning, but also the role of affirmation, encouragement, praise. Praise and critique go hand-in-hand, that reexamination and rejuvenation go hand in hand.

And when you think Jesse Owens just sitting there and telling little Cliff - Cliff ran a 437 his junior year, he ran a 409 his senior year, which made him world class.

Tavis: Jesse Owens can pump you up that way.

West: I'm telling you.

Tavis: You mentioned Ronald Reagan earlier. We know, of course, to your earlier point, he was governor of California. So Jesse Owens one day came to your house, but you had a chance one day to go to Ronald Reagan's office.

West: I sure did.

Tavis: You were how old about this time?

West: I was then - 1969, I was 16.

Tavis: Sixteen, and what did you say to Ronald Reagan when you went to his office?

West: I told Ronald Reagan, I said, "I deeply appreciate you inviting my brother and family. You have very wise judgment and it's nice to meet you." Ronald Reagan was a very nice guy, one-on-one, and he's the kind of brother it'd be nice to have a locker next to, because he had a sense of humor and very embracing and so forth.

It's just he had such vicious policies when it came to poor people, and so he had asked me what I was doing. I said, "Well, I've actually been working with the Black Panther party."

Tavis: You told Ronald Reagan this.

West: Mm-hmm. (Laughter) (Unintelligible) because I loved the Black Panther party's love of poor people, and I worked with the (unintelligible) programming when I was at Harvard, and the prison program.

And he said, "Black Panthers, these so-and-sos?" And I said, "No, you misunderstand them." I said, "They're trying to police the police. Arbitrary police power is the most crucial issue in any democracy." That's why Brother Skip Gates' case was so very important. Arbitrary police power, the debate over it. And for so long, Black people have been what - victimized by arbitrary police power. Nothing wrong with fair police power, but arbitrary, unfair, and the Black Panther party was concerned about that.

"Oh, no, they're a revolutionary guerilla group." "No, no, no, they're policing the police, brother." I said, "You get your police together and make sure they're fair all the time, then they wouldn't have to do it." So I said, "I love their concern with poor people," and it wasn't just a matter of color. As you know, if in fact Black brothers and sisters were dominating White brothers and sisters, I'm in solidarity with the White brothers and sisters. Not because they're White - justice, fairness, principle.

Now in America, it's indigenous peoples, often forgotten. I never forget about them. Black folks, poor White, elderly, gay brothers, lesbian sisters, anti-Semitic, anti-Arab hatred, all of these issues need to be hit head-on, and that's what I was talking to Ronald Reagan about.

But he was - he made a joke about it, but I knew that I'd kind of hit him below the belt.

Tavis: You hit him - he felt your comment.

West: Oh, he felt the comment. (Laughter) Even Dad looked at me and said, "Keep Jesus in mind, keep Jesus in mind." (Laughter)

Tavis: You don't want to get kicked out of the governor's office. (Laughter) You mentioned police power. In the book I'm recalling a couple of stories that you tell. We don't have time to get into both of them; I'll let you choose which one you want to tell. You had a run-in with the cops when you were a student at Harvard.

West: Absolutely.

Tavis: You had a run-in with the cops later on when you were driving as an adult. Pick one of those stories and tell me about your - you mentioned your friend Skip Gates and his run-in with the cops, and you've had that happen to you.

West: Oh, Lord, yes. I think that's true for every Black man now that I know. I was teaching at Williams College, my dear brother David Smith, David L. Smith and Sister Vivian, just magnificent persons.

I was driving from New York to Albany; police surround me and say, "Now we've finally got you, the head cocaine runner between New York and Albany.

Tavis: (Laughs) You running cocaine?

West: Me. I said, "I'm a professor of religion, I'm actually going up to teach a course on Nietzsche and others." They say, "Yeah, and I'm the Flying Nun, goddang it. You going to jail. Come on, nigger."

I said, "Oh, Lord, here we go again," because it's true in college, when I was head of the Black student association along with Brother Kevin Mercadale (sp), we'd taken over the building, the president's office, because they had some very ugly investments in Angola that was losing sight of the humanity of some of our precious African brothers and sisters.

And I was actually supposed to lead the charge, but I'm majoring in (unintelligible) languages and literature, studying for my Hebrew exam. The police take me out and say I raped a White sister, me and two other brothers. I said, "You've got to be kidding."

They bring the White sister in, line me up, and keep telling her, "You know he's the one, you know he's the one, you know he's the one."

Tavis: While you're a student at Harvard?

West: Absolutely. I'm in jail one night, I didn't tell Mom. In fact, Mom's just finding out about a lot of this stuff right now. (Laughter) God bless you, Mama, I love you to death, you know that, now.

She taught me to trust in the Lord, and I will until the day I die, because I'm a living witness, you know what I mean? But if it wasn't for that White sister bearing witness to truth and justice - she's shaking. "A negro did it?" "Yeah, it was a negro, but not that one." And you see, we interchangeable and substitutable too often, you see.

And so that issue of arbitrary police power affects not just me but every person, regardless of color, but because it disproportionately affects poor Black and poor Brown (unintelligible).

Tavis: We could do this for hours; I got about a minute and a half to go here. We're just now scratching the surface of your memoir, but I want to close on this note. Speaking of Harvard, we just had a dear friend of yours on this program just a few nights ago, because his memoir - funny how both of you have memoirs out at the same time - James Brown.

West: Oh, yeah, yeah - yeah, brother, yes, yes.

Tavis: You all know JB from CBS, the "NFL Today."

West: He's such a wonderful (unintelligible).

Tavis: Another part of this fascinating book. His roommate at Harvard was JB. He and James Brown, roommates at Harvard, and it takes JB to tell the story about how you used to come to the dances, because you will get your party on, for those who really know you.

West: Oh, absolutely.

Tavis: It takes JB to tell the story how you would come to the party with books under your arm, put the books on the floor -

West: Put it down in the corner, put on "Get Up Offa That Thing" and let's hit it. (Laughter) We'd start moving. No, but JB's a beautiful brother. I tell you, man, he had the most lovely mother, man. Lord, Lord. And Sister Alicia, too. But no, I love JB, though, man. He was one of the great basketball stars too.

Tavis: Oh, absolutely.

West: But he's got a heart of gold. We're going to do an event together, actually, in Jersey. But he's just such a good brother, and we were - I was at his church just a couple of years ago. I think he has a humility that reminds me in some ways of the great Gardner Taylor. You and I got a chance to spend time with that towering figure, the greatest of all living Christian preachers.

The prayer that he gave us when he said, "Just to get up every morning, that our bed is not our cooling board."

Tavis: That's right.

West: And that our bedclothes is not our winding sheets.

Tavis: Yeah, and that the greedy grave -

West: And that the four walls of our bedroom is not the narrow confines of the greedy grave. Another day for service - what a joy, what a joy. But that's what I love about your show - it's so rare to see a celebrity who is still rooted in bearing witness to true standing in his true, but doing it with a humility and doing it as part of a larger tradition so that we don't forget about Brother Martin King, we don't forget about Fannie Lou Hamer, we don't forget about Rabbi Abraham Joshua Heschel and others, and still find a little time to listen to some Steven Sondheim.

Tavis: There you go. (Laughter) As you can tell, he is my friend and I wouldn't have it any other way. What a delight it is, always, to have Dr. Cornel West on this program and to celebrate the occasion, finally, the release of his memoir.

We have not even done justice to what's in the book, just scratched the surface. It's called, appropriately, if you know him, "Brother West: Living and Loving Out Loud."

Doc, I love you and I'm glad to have you on this program.

West: Love you, love you, my brother. Stay strong, stay strong.

Tavis: Good to see you, man, good to see you.

West: Always a blessing. Always a blessing.