Cornel West Reverses Support for President Obama, Calls Him a "Black Mascot" for Wall Street & "Black Puppet"

leading black intellectual Princeton University professor Cornel West reverses support for President Barack Obama over his lack of attention to black community, calls him a "black mascot" for Wall Street and a "black puppet of corporate plutocrats."

Is President Barack Obama a "Black Puppet"

Cornel West, a professor at Princeton University, owes President Barack Obama an apology for calling him a "black mascot" for Wall Street and a "black puppet of corporate plutocrats" during an interview with Truthdig. He could have easily said the same words but took the "black" label out of it. He has made it all about race and magnifies the fact that he and Tavis Smiley have a real issue with Barack Obama's blackness, or the lack thereof in their eyes. It should be noted that West supported Obama in the 2008 presidential campaign and even took part in 65 campaign events, but I am afraid he sank to a new low with the name-calling tinged with black-on-black hatred. Here's an excerpt from Truthdig:

“I said in the world that I live in, in that which authorizes my reality, Ella Baker is a towering figure,” he says, munching Fritos and sipping apple juice at his desk. “If I say there is a lot of Ella Baker in Michelle Obama, that’s a compliment. She can take it any way she wants. I can tell her I’m sorry it offended you, but I’m going to speak the truth. She is a Harvard Law graduate, a Princeton graduate, and she deals with child obesity and military families. Why doesn’t she visit a prison? Why not spend some time in the hood? That is where she is, but she can’t do it.

“I think my dear brother Barack Obama has a certain fear of free black men,” West says. “It’s understandable. As a young brother who grows up in a white context, brilliant African father, he’s always had to fear being a white man with black skin. All he has known culturally is white. He is just as human as I am, but that is his cultural formation. When he meets an independent black brother, it is frightening. And that’s true for a white brother. When you get a white brother who meets a free, independent black man, they got to be mature to really embrace fully what the brother is saying to them. It’s a tension, given the history. It can be overcome. Obama, coming out of Kansas influence, white, loving grandparents, coming out of Hawaii and Indonesia, when he meets these independent black folk who have a history of slavery, Jim Crow, Jane Crow and so on, he is very apprehensive. He has a certain rootlessness, a deracination. It is understandable.

President Obama and his wife cannot fix what ails the black community. He can't ignore the rest of the country and just focus on the needs of the black community. Then he would be called a racist and all manner of names from the right wing. He didn't win the presidency by the black vote only. He won the presidency because Americans of all ethnic backgrounds voted to put him there. Let us be perfectly clear, some of the issues dogging the black community are self-inflicted and the result of a lack of personal responsibility. No president can fix that. It is extremely hilarious that West, who didn't live in any of the neighborhoods he supposedly speaks for now, but yet he wants to hold the president to a higher standard. He spent the bulk of his adult life in communities that were so deeply rooted in the black experience in this country, such as Cambridge, MA, and Princeton, NJ. Of course, I am being facetious to point out his effrontery. Sorry, but when I think Ivy League, I don't exactly see places that have a liberating history for blacks in this country, let alone black men. So, excuse me while I puke.

Still, it's perfectly fine for West to reverse his support. I am also disappointed with the Obama Administration for its knee-jerk response to just about everything it does, but I wouldn't label his a a "black knee-jerker." That's just interjecting race in the mix. Even if West made valid points during the interview, those will not be remembered. Just the terrible names he called the president and the envy he exudes. I have read some of Cornel West's books and I actually liked him a lot, but I lost whatever respect I had for him after hearing the divisive words that he uttered. Who needs Rush Limbaugh and Glenn Beck when we have Cornel West and Tavis Smiley to go after President Obama's blackness or his patriotism, or anything he does? West sent out a Twitter message in response the firestorm his comments set up by saying: “This discussion is in no way about me, it has to do with poor and working people having low priority in US governmental policy including the Obama Administration. My personal words had to do with being disrespected by the President. People are disrespected everyday, and they can raise their voices in response to it.” Oh, so I guess it's okay to disrespect the president and it's really okay for Rush Limbaugh and other critics to call him a "black puppet" and a "black mascot" and any names they so desire. This is setting a very dangerous precedent.