Cornel West, Tavis Smiley, and Malcolm X.

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(ThyBlackMan.com) While browsing the web this morning I came across an article written by Dr. Boyce Watkins blaring, “Cornel West Says that Sharpton, Dyson are “Up for Sale”: Let’s Talk about That One, Shall We?” My first reaction was, “Hmmmm, Dr. Michael Eric Dyson must have gotten a new job.”
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The reason that’s the first thing that came to mind was because Cornel West is rapidly building a reputation for attacking anyone in the Black community who tends to overshadow him. This tendency, and the reckless and petty way in which he pursues it, has become so pronounced in West that it’s beginning to betray his primary agenda as a whole. He’s not interested in the Black community at all. All he’s interested in is keeping Cornel West in the spotlight.

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Look at the facts. First he attacks Barack Obama. He was fine with Barack at first – as long as he could look upon him as subordinate. But once Obama began to get widespread public attention, West started to cool towards him. Then it became clear that Obama could actually become the President of the United States and had the audacity to refuse to he and Tavis Smiley’ music, Cornel West went into wild-eyed opposition to everything he represented – that is, after West became certain that he wasn’t going to enjoy the notoriety of a prominent role in Obama’s administration, and he wasn’t going to be able to strut around with the president on speed dial. Then he saw fit to publicly declare that the president was a puppet to plutocrats and afraid of “free Black  men.” I don’t recall him ever being that disrespectful to George W. Bush.
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Then, he came out against Dr. Melissa Harris-Perry. Just like with Obama, West was fine with Dr.  Melissa Harris Perry at first. He recruited her to come to Princeton and they were colleauges. But once it became clear that Dr. Perry had a mind of her own and that she wasn’t prone to hero worship, he began to undermine her at Princeton, so she quiet left. But once Cornel West found out that she had been given a show on MSNBC, all hell broke loose. Instead of this good brother, who only lives to serve his people, being happy over the prospect that another intelligent Black voice had gained access to the mass media, he saw fit to publicly proclaim that this very impressive Black woman was “a liar and a fraud.”
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So again, it seems that Cornel West is always prepared to preach a much better sermon on black love and respect than he’s willing to live. Because his comments were extremely disrespectful toward both Black women, and the Black community as a whole. A true brother – a true man – wouldn’t even speak to a lady like that in private, much less, bad mouth her like that publicly. Whatever happen to the concept of cherishing our women?  No one should have to teach him that. As a so-called Black intellectual, that’s exactly what he should be teaching our young people – that it’s impossible for them to have any self-respect, until they learn to respect the very womb of their culture. You’d think an intellectual would know that. West also betrayed his elitist sense of entitlement and disdain for the poor and working class when he complained about a mere baggage handler getting tickets to the Presidential Inauguration while he couldn’t.
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But it doesn’t end there. Cornel West has also seen fit to go after Jay-Z. Obviously Jay-Z was getting a little too much publicity over his part ownership of the Brooklyn Nets and the Barclay Center. So West took it upon himself to say, in essence, “Wait a minute, world! That pickaninny don’t own that. The White man owns it! So you see, I’m still the man!” Okay West, but what does fronting off Jay-Z have to do with moving Black people forward?
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Cornel West is not only a demagogue, but he’s a demagogue of the worst kind. Just before he sticks a knife in your back, he starts talking about “how much he loves his brother, however . . .”  With “good brothers” like Cornel West, we’d all be better off orphans.
 
Now he’s also badmouthing Rev. Al Sharpton and Dr.Michael Eric Dyson, saying they’re “up for sale.” What’s wrong with this guy? What evidence does he have of that? If he has evidence to substantiate what he’s saying, he should produce it instead of running all over the country slandering every Black person who doesn’t see things his way. He seems to have something to say about everybody but his buddy, Tavis Smiley, who’s one of the most prolific corporate shills in the Black community, and associated with several corporations, including Walmart, that are, or have been, associated with ALEC, an organization that’s left no stone unturned to deprive Black people of their right to vote – and we’ve got evidence of that.
 
So the fact is, many in the Black community have allowed themselves to be hornswoggled by both the media, and Cornel West. The bottom line is,West is nothing more than a self-absorbed, egomaniacal fraud who hasn’t had an original thought in 35 years, and it looks like the Black community is the last to recognize it..
 
Some have allowed themselves to be bedazzled by two words – Harvard and Princeton. The establishment has effectively used those two words to convince many of us to accept, without examination, that Cornel West has more sense than they do. that’s what accounts for their rabid defense of him. The people need to step out of our media-constructed bubble, open your eyes, ears, and minds, and stop letting others dictate who they listen to.
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The White establishment has been propping Cornel West up with their very special kind of hype for all of his 35 years in the public eye. Yet, I have never met one person who can tell me one profound sentence he’s uttered in the three-and-a-half decades that he’s been on the public stage – and a stage is exactly what it’s been, because West is more of an entertainer than an intellectual.
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Tavis Smiley and Cornel West are exactly like Herman Cain, but with one exception – at least Herman Cain is honest about supporting the GOP. But Tavis and West are using a technique used by the FBI during COINTELPRO, when J. Edgar Hoover was trying to bring down the civil rights movement in the sixties. During that time Hoover sent in a bunch of “undercover brothers” just like Tavis Smiley and Cornel West. They were so radically militant that they turned off the American people, and they were so divisive that they caused the movement to turn on itself. That’s exactly what Tavis Smiley and Cornel West are doing today.
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These two turncoats are trying to place Obama in an untenable position. They’re using militant rhetoric to insist that President Obama play Blackjack at a poker table, knowing damn well that he can’t do that. If he tries, he’ll turn the American people against him – in which case, he becomes impotent and can’t get anything done for anyone – but if he doesn’t, Tavis Smiley and Cornel  West are going to try to turn Black people against him, which would also serve to destory his presidency.
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That’s exactly the same thing the FBI did in the sixties. In the end, they had young Black people (who supported the harder line of Malcolm) calling Martin Luther King, “Martin Luther Coon” – including myself, I’m ashamed to admit. That’s exactly what Tavis Smiley and Cornel West are doing today. I saw the parallel immediately, and that’s why I’m dead on their asses. Maybe I can make up, just a little bit, for the stupidity of my youth.
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Malcolm X saw through the problem back in the sixties and tried to instruct his followers not to allow the establishment to divide us among ourselves. He’s said that it didn’t matter whether or not we saw eye-to-eye with Martin’s approach on every issue. Our goal was the same, therefore, we were allies. He then made it a point to join with Martin, but they took him out before he could complete the process.
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So while Tavis and West are always talking about, “Brother Malcolm,” Malcolm X would have long since seen through their game, and he would be absolutely disgusted with both of them.
 
Staff Writer; Eric L. Wattree
 
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