The Cornel West Litmus Test

Professor Cornell West on President Obama

“He feels most comfortable with upper middle-class white and Jewish men who consider themselves very smart, very savvy and very effective in getting what they want,” he says. “He’s got two homes. He has got his family and whatever challenges go on there, and this other home. Larry Summers blows his mind because he’s so smart. He’s got Establishment connections."

“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."

My Response:

Dr. West, you have every right to hold any president accountable for their actions or perceived inactions. Healthy, fierce and confrontational debate is what makes a democracy strong. I have no qualms.

But when you inject race, in a dime-store psychological way, you cheapen and undercut your argument.

Secondly, Dr. West you bring more scrutiny upon the type of company you professionally keep.

Checking your educational resume, one can - using your litmus test - conclude you are only

"...comfortable with upper middle-class white and Jewish men who consider themselves very smart, very savvy and very effective in getting what they want,”

Dr. West's Resume:

Tenured professor at four elite universities with minimal minority students. These universities include: Haverford, Harvard, Yale and Princeton.

He has taught overseas - not Africa, Asia, nor the Middle-East - in Europe at the University of Paris.

Report Card Time:

Sorry, Professor West you have just failed you own Litmus Test.

BTW, it sounds elitist and classist when you say:

And then as it turns out with the inauguration I couldn’t get a ticket with my mother and my brother. I said this is very strange. We drive into the hotel and the guy who picks up my bags from the hotel has a ticket to the inauguration

That Pssst sound you hear is the deflating of Dr. West's credibility.