This doesn’t mean that these achievements don’t deserve recognition, but it means we must be careful. When we talk about what it means to be black and what it means to make history, we must understand the importance of writing our own history instead of having it fed to us. We must also learn to reject the temptation to embrace the subtle Jim Crow of flawed integration and learn to appreciate the sturdy value of self-reliance. Self-reliance, in its various forms, will not only help alleviate the crisis of black unemployment, it will also help us to avert the toxic brainwashing which comes from having descendants of your oppressors controlling your access to media and education.
One place to start might be with the political neutering of Dr. Martin Luther King, who was a radical freedom fighter who has been reduced to a snippet in a McDonald’s commercial. Dr. Cornel West has taken issue with the morphing of Dr. King and is speaking regularly to resurrect the real Dr. King from the spiritual grave. Despite being hit by propaganda of the worst kind (most of those who try to write off Dr. West as worthless aren’t actually listening to his speeches), Cornel West continues with a kind of persistence that has to be admired. If anything were to undermine the legacy of this extraordinary scholar, it would be that the purity of truth is just too much to digest in a world that is built on hurtful and ugly lies.
I meet public figures all the time and most of them are great speakers. But when I listen to Dr. West, I listen even more carefully. Why? Because I know that when he speaks, I am witnessing black history. There isn’t a scholar on the planet as prominent as West saying the things that he is saying right now, and saying them as consistently as he has been for the last 20 years. Long after the Obama era is done and the president and First Lady have retired to Martha’s Vineyard with the rest of the black elite, Dr. West and his disciples will continue speaking for those who do not have a voice. I get a sense that he understands that the persecution he is receiving for not going with the popular program is more built on him “messing things up by talking” than by anyone being able to actually do a point-by-point analysis of the exact words that are coming out of his mouth.