General Discussion
In reply to the discussion: Cornel West on the President [View all]bigtree
(85,915 posts). . . he didn't elect himself.
Where was Dr. King? Henry Louis Gates? Michael Eric Dyson? Julianne Malveaux? Imani Perry?
Is their opinion less than the president's? How did he achieve the office? Through his own brilliance, or through our votes? Does that make him omnipotent, inviolable?
Cornel Ronald West is an American philosopher, academic, activist, author, public intellectual, and prominent member of the Democratic Socialists of America. The son of a Baptist minister, West received his undergraduate education at Harvard University, graduating with a bachelor's degree in 1973, and received a Ph.D at Princeton University in 1980, becoming the first African American to graduate from Princeton with a Ph.D in philosophy. He was formerly The Class of 1943 Professor of African American Studies at Princeton before leaving the school in 2011 to become Professor of Philosophy and Christian Practice at the Union Theological Seminary in New York City. He previously taught at Harvard before leaving the school after a highly publicized dispute with then-president Lawrence Summers, and has also spent time teaching at the University of Paris.
The bulk of West's work focuses on the role of race, gender, and class in American society and the means by which people act and react to their "radical conditionedness." West draws intellectual contributions from multiple traditions, including Christianity, the black church, Marxism, neopragmatism, and transcendentalism. Among his most influential books are Race Matters (1994) and Democracy Matters (2004).
As a young man, West marched in civil rights demonstrations and organized protests demanding black studies courses at his high school, where he was class president. He later wrote that, in his youth, he admired "the sincere black militancy of Malcolm X, the defiant rage of the Black Panther Party [...] and the livid black theology of James Cone."
In 1970, after graduating from high school, he enrolled at Harvard College and took classes from philosophers Robert Nozick and Stanley Cavell. In 1973, he graduated magna cum laude in Near Eastern Languages and Civilization. West credited Harvard with exposing him to a broader range of ideas, influenced by his professors as well as the Black Panther Party. West says his Christianity prevented him from joining the BPP, instead choosing to work in local breakfast, prison, and church programs.
In 1980, West earned a Ph.D. from Princeton, where he was influenced by Richard Rorty's neopragmatism. The title of his dissertation was Ethics, historicism and the Marxist tradition, which was later revised and published under the title The Ethical Dimensions of Marxist Thought.
In his mid-20s, he returned to Harvard as a W. E. B. Du Bois Fellow before becoming an Assistant Professor at Union Theological Seminary in the City of New York. In 1984, he went to Yale Divinity School in what eventually became a joint appointment in American Studies. While at Yale, he participated in campus protests for a clerical labor union and divestment from apartheid South Africa. One of the protests resulted in his being arrested and jailed. As punishment, the University administration canceled his leave for the spring term in 1987, leading him to commute from Yale in New Haven, Connecticut, where he was teaching two classes, across the Atlantic Ocean to the University of Paris.
He then returned to Union for one year before going to Princeton to become a Professor of Religion and Director of the Program in African-American Studies from 1988 to 1994. After Princeton, he accepted an appointment as Professor of African-American Studies at Harvard University, with a joint appointment at the Harvard Divinity School. West taught one of the University's most popular courses, an introductory class on African-American Studies. In 1998, he was appointed the first Alphonse Fletcher University Professor. West utilized this new position to teach in not only African-American studies, but also Divinity, Religion, and Philosophy.[19] West left Harvard after a widely publicized dispute with then-President Lawrence Summers in 2002. That year, West returned to Princeton, where he helped created one of the worlds leading centers for African-American studies according to Shirley Tilghman, Princeton's president in 2011. In 2012, West left Princeton and returned to the seminary where he began his teaching career, Union Theological Seminary. His departure from Princeton, unlike his departure from Harvard, was on good terms and he remains an emeritus professor at Princeton.
The recipient of more than 20 honorary degrees and an American Book Award, he has written or contributed to over twenty published books. West is a long-time member of the Democratic Socialists of America, for which he now serves as Honorary Chair. He is also a co-founder of the Network of Spiritual Progressives. West is on the Advisory Board of the International Bridges to Justice.
In 2008, he received a special recognition from the World Cultural Council. West is also a member of Alpha Phi Alpha fraternity and its World Policy Council, a think tank whose purpose is to expand Alpha Phi Alpha's involvement in politics and social and current policy to encompass international concerns.
I had the pleasure and privilege of walking in a D.C. anti-war march where I ended up beside this man - he was walking alone, just months after treatment for his prostate cancer . . . what was your point again?