Eddie Glaude on Cornel West and "The Obama Deception"

This is a follow-up to an earlier post about the firestorm in the black community about Professor Cornel West's strong criticism of Obama in Chris Hedges article "The Obama Deception: Why Cornel West Went Ballistic".

It's an interview with Prof. Eddie Glaude, also a politically active black academic from Princeton, with Sam Seder of Majority.fm. Glaude has much to add to the issue and the discussion.

It's a fascinating interview. Stay tuned on this one; it isn't going away, and as I intimated in my earlier post, may offer us a way out. Black criticism of Obama is different from any other, and potentially more powerful.



In the interview, Prof. Glaude refers to comments in The Nation by Melissa Harris-Perry. Those comments are here. Like I said, a firestorm.

Notice the use of the term "brother" — Glaude calls Seder "brother Sam" for example. In the original interview Prof. West refers to "brother Paul Krugman" and "brother Joseph Stiglitz" (search for it in the print version). It's very powerful, and reflects both to black unity and progressive unity.

Well, also in that original interview, Obama calls West "brother West" in a striking exchange, at least to my ears. How much of West's sense of betrayal is contained in just that word?

As I said, this isn't going away. West and Glaude have real courage and actual integrity (a word that means "oneness"), and not a lot to lose.

GP