Trinity Hooper: Hello, everybody, and welcome to A Conversation
with Cornel West, curated by Moorpark's
BSU. The Q&A box is open for questions and
there will be captions for anyone who needs it.
This event will be live streamed on YouTube and
the recording of this event will be available at a
later date. This is coordinated by President
Gerald Richardson the Third, Pauline Nassar, who is
Chief Executive, Ka Ren MacCalla, Director of
Public Affairs and Marketing, and me, Trinity Hooper,
the Director of Secretarial Affairs and Treasury. This
event is sponsored by the Moorpark College Student
Equity, Associate Students of Ventura College,
Associated Students of Moorpark College, Oxnard
College Associated Student Government, and a
special thanks is going out to Johnny Conley,
Director of Student Equity and Moorpark College,
Libby Fatta, Student Activity Specialist at
Ventura College, Gabi Rodriguez, Student
Activity Specialist at Moorpark College, the Black
History Month Committee at Moorpark College,
Professor Timothy Lumas, Ms. Banea Sumpter,
Professor Ranford Hopkins, Professor Cynthia
Barnett, Professor Tamarra Coleman, Professor Patty
Colman, Professor Lauren Snowden, Micaiah
Satterwhite, Dina Pielaet, Michael Ashton, and
Analisa Jugan. Now, I would like to introduce Dr.
Julius Sokenu.
Dr. Julius Sokenu: Welcome, everyone, and thank you so much for
joining us. I understand that there is almost seven
or eight hundred people here, this
afternoon, joining us. This afternoon's
conversation with Dr. Cornel West is an
opportunity to bear witness, to love and justice.
Equitable access to higher education, facilitates
social and economic mobility and fosters
corrective justice. We are thoughtful in how we
pursue student success by designing an ecosystem
that promotes justice. Equity is a way of being,
thinking, and acting. We go beyond just identifying
data, but by addressing how our practices serve
our students, our Black, our Indigenous, people of
color students, our LGBTQ students, and our
differently abled students. We go beyond
identifying the gaps in hiring faculty and staff
and create opportunities to advance and remain in
our institutions, opportunites for those
individuals to advance and remain in our
institutions. Equity and inclusion for us means
financial aid for our students, child care for our
students, providing transportation opportunities
for our students and our community, meeting the
basic needs of our students so that they can
achieve academic and career success. Following the
brutal murder of George Floyd and the racial
reckoning movement that followed, California
Community College Chancellor Oakley called us to
action. He challenged us to address the national
crisis of racism and social inequity. Today's
event is a conversation that is student led and
supported by faculty and staff. We will have an
honest, open discussion to address race and equity.
Dr. West is the Oracle we look to, as we call out
structural barriers to creating an equitable
institution and achieving equitable
transformation. Dr. West is an elder to help us
build the cultural mindset, the shifts that are
necessary to continuously reflect and hold
ourselves accountable for creating an anti-racist,
culturally responsive, and race conscious campus.
Our student organizations at Moorpark, Ventura, and
Oxnard College have collaborated today to present
this talk with Dr. West. I am inspired by students,
their advocacy, and we are here to learn, to listen,
and to get motivated to act, and in so doing, bear
witness to love and justice. My colleague,
President Sanchez, sent his
welcome and he was unable to join us this
afternoon because they have a PRT visit going
on their campus, but he does say his welcome,
nevertheless. From Ventura College to express her
welcome is Dr. Kim Hoffmans.
Dr. Kim Hoffmans: Thank you, Dr.
Sokenu, I really appreciate the opportunity to be here,
and I thank Dr. West and all the presenters that
are now enhancing all the wonderful presentations
and conversations we've had all month around Black
History Month. I also want to point out that
our students and our employees deserve a learning
environment that is inclusive of equity and free
of racism. And that is important work that we're
all doing, and why these conversations that we're
having today and we've had all month and that will
continue are so important. Lastly, I just want to
thank our students. We are so blessed and
fortunate to have students that are allies and
partners in this work that they really are sharing
their voices and their experience to help shape
our colleges as we move forward in the future in
supporting diversity, equity, inclusion. So we are
very lucky at Ventura, Oxnard, and Moorpark College
to have those partnerships and work together for
institutional transformation. Thank you so much
for allowing me to be here today. And then next, I
think is, trustee from the Ventura
County Community College District and our board
chair, Josh Chancer.
Josh Chancer: Good afternoon. On behalf of our elected board of
trustees, welcome Dr. West, and I just wanted to
say a huge thank you to the students of Oxnard,
Ventura, and Moorpark College. You are truly the
light of our district, and I'm very proud to hand
it off to Miss MacCalla. Thank you.
Ka Ren MacCalla: Hello, thank you. My name is Ka Ren MacCalla, I am
the Director of Public Affairs and Marketing of
the Moorpark College Black Student Union and also
SS Triple C Region six Vice Chair. I would like to
first introduce our co moderators, Gerald
Richardson the Third, who is the President of the
Moorpark College Black Student Union, the Senate
Chair for Oxnard College ASD, and the Legislative
Affairs Director of SS Triple C. Pauline Nassar is the
Chief Director of Moorpark College BSU, SS
Triple C Communications Officer, and Oxnard College
Associated Student Senator, our faculty
moderator, who is Tamarra Coleman, she is the DEI
Coordinator on campus. And now for our legendary
key note, Dr. Cornel West.
Dr. Cornel West: Thank you for those very kind and generous words.
I want to first say that it is a blessing for me
to be here with the precious students in the
Ventura County network. I'm talking about Oxnard
College, I'm talking about Ventura College, I'm
talking about Moorpark as well. Sister Trinity, I
want to thank you so very much, I look forward to
our conversations, and of course, I want to salute
a distinguished Professor Coleman. I want to
salute the captain of the ship, my dear brother,
President Sokenu. I want to salute my dear sister, who's
the captain of another ship, I'm talking about
President Hoffmans. And we want to thank brother
Chancellor for his wonderful role in facilitating
and keeping institutions afloat. And most
importantly, I want to thank the Black Student
Union for being kind enough to bring me so that I
could attempt to say something, to be a force for
good, to try to critically challenge our precious
students. Now, I want to begin, with my own
situation as a person, as a human being. At any
time I think of human history, any time I think of
American history, any time I think of modern
history, any time I think of Black history, it
goes back to acknowledging who we are as the
persons that we are. So I begin with the notion,
well it's more than a notion, again with the
reality, I am who I am because somebody loved me.
Somebody cared for me. Somebody tended to me, and
so I situate myself in a very rich tradition of
those who have been willing to attempt to
cultivate the best inside of me. And this is very
important because anytime you talk about race, you
don't begin with name calling and finger pointing.
You begin with trying to understand what has gone into
the shaping and molding of who we are so that we
can accept the best of who we are. Now I was blessed,
to have the best father in the world, Clifton
West, I'll never be the human being he was and I
still have the best mother in the world, Irene B. West. There's still an
elementary school named after her, Irene B. West
Elementary School, right outside of Sacramento,
California. And that magnificent West family is
intertwined with Shiloh Baptist Church that's on
the chocolate side of Sacramento, California. And
I cannot even begin to understand my attempt to
engage in truth telling and witness bearing and
justice seeking without Irene and Clifton.
Without Clifton, my blood brothers, Cynthia, Cheryl,
without Willie P. Cooke, without Deacon Hinton, without
Sarah Ray. We were told over and over again, "If
the Kingdom of God is within you, then everywhere
you go, you ought to leave a little Heaven behind."
Now I know there's a whole lot of heaven being
left behind there in Ventura County, especially
with the students. But intellectually, that means
what? Learning to think for yourself, to cultivate
a critical consciousness, and then to allow for an
unleashing of a loving soul so that you can leave
heaven behind, by the thoughts you think, by the
deeds you perform, by the community you're a part
of. Now, why is this very important to talking
about race and talking about Black history? Well,
you all know. We live in one of the most polarized
moments in the history of the country. It's so
difficult to stay in contact with, let alone revel
in the humanity of other people. Be it racial
lines, religious lines, sexual orientational
lines, gender lines, and the best of the tradition
that has gone into me is always said, "Yes, we
acknowledge our roots, R-O-O-T-S, we acknowledge our
identity, our Black identity, brown identity,
whatever identity it is, but all of those roots
and those identities must be grounded in a moral
and spiritual integrity, that allows us to embrace
others with a global solidarity. And so when you
talk about Black history and I talk about some
ghettoized corner in the history of
the nation, it's taking you right to the center of
any serious and substantive quest for truth and
justice. Justice is what love looks like in
public, just like tenderness is what love feels
like in private. In every institution of higher
learning, purports to be involved in a pursuit,
a quest for truth, for justice, for fairness, and
there's no way in which you can talk about truth
and justice and fairness without each one of us
engaging in a Socratic self-examination. "The
unexamined life is not worth living." That's Plato, that's
line thirty three A in The Apology, but also a
connection of our critical thinking with the
suffering of others. Now we began this afternoon with
John Coltrane. John Coltrane is a great wave in an
ocean of people and of a tradition, my tradition
of Black people, who for 400 years were
chronically systemically hated, and yet keep
dishing out love, what, is like John Coltrane, like
Martin Luther King Junior, like Fannie Lou Hamer,
like Ella Baker, like Harriet Tubman. I could go
on and on and on, Stevie Wonder, love and the need
to love, James Ball, love forces us to take off
the mask we know we could not live with then, but
fear we cannot live without. Same people being
terrorized for 400 years, going all the way back
when that first slave was put on that barbaric
ship on the way to the new world. Our dear brother
mentioned, brother Floyd, George Floyd, Jr., public
lynching, another act of terrorism, but in the
face of that terrorism, did the Black folk choose to
terrorize others, the Black folk choose to create
a black version of Ku Klux Klan? No,
Frederick Douglass said, "You terrorize us. We want
freedom for everybody." That's what it is to be a
freedom fighter tied to being a love warrior. That's what
Sojourner Truth said. That's what A. Philip
Randolph said. That's what Donny Hathaway sang
about. That's what Aretha sang about. Love warrior,
freedom fighter. Same people, same tradition,
traumatized for four hundred years. In the face of
trauma, what, at our best choosing to be wounded
healers, not wounded hurters. The wounded hurter
is the worst of our tradition, the worst
of any tradition. We come to elevate the best.
Something is happening in Ventura County. And
that's something that's happening at its best, has
to do with human beings of all colors, human
beings of all genders, of all sexual orientations,
human beings choosing truth, justice, integrity,
honesty, decency. And here in February, we say, "Ah
let us keep track of our people who generated
these love warriors and freedom fighters and
wounded healers." So we can not just learn something
from them, but we can inculcate their vision and
their courage inside of us, so that we can be
better love warriors, freedom fighters, and
wounded healers. What a challenge and a moment in
which our country is wrestling with such spiritual
decay, hatred, contempt, arrogance, hostility,
wrestling with such moral decrepitude, while
people morn more. Push aside the Ten
Commandments concerned with the 11th commandment,
"Thou shalt not get caught. I'll do anything in
order to be successful. I'll say anything and get
away with it. I don't do anything with impunity."
That's not just polarization, that's gangster-
ization. And we're living at a time where gangster-
rised ways of being in the world becoming more
pervasive. Where commodification of everybody is for
self, everything's for self. All we want is just
money, status, celebrity, position. How empty
life, of the love warriors, and freedom fighters,
and wounded healers that constitute the best of
the black tradition in the midst of the United
States, that began with its settler colonial
project, this will be the land of our precious Indigenous
brothers and sisters. To the enslaved Africans could
engage in phony wars against our precious Mexican
brothers and sisters, so that California, wants
Mexico, Texas, wants Mexico taken away by force.
That is the worst of America. There is a best of
America. Of all colors. All genders. All sexual
orientations in this country. The people who
out of love, and freedom, and a willingness to heal,
said, "We're going to try to keep alive a fragile
experiment in democracy that heeds the anthem of
Black people, which is lift every voice." That
means the voices on the reservation, take seriously
the stories and visions, the voices in the hood,
the voices in the barrio, the voices on the poor
side of, the poor sections of the vanilla side
of town. It's a human affair. Any time you talk
about the best of Black history or the best of any
history, I would argue. So let me stop there, I
know sister Trinity, I think sister Trinity,
and our sister Pauline is going to come and we'll
have dialogue. And we won't worry about the time.
We won't worry about the time at all I'll go with the
spirit here.
And my dear brother, Gerald. Looking so sharp with
that beautiful smile you got.
Gerald Richardson III: So with that, we will now enter our Q&A section, our
this moderated section. I'll pass it on to
Pauline.
Pauline Nassar: Thank you, Gerald, and thank you, Dr.
Cornel West. I just want to acknowledge Gerald
Richardson and I one more time for not
only organizing this event, but coming up with the
questions for this event. With that being said,
the first question is, you've written a lot about
what it means to be an intellectual, especially a
Black intellectual, but there's so much anti expert
anti intellectual sentiment in the US. So what
role do you see for intellectuals now in
responding to the pandemic and the protests?
Dr. Cornel West: What
a wonderful question. And again, I salute both of
you. And I talk about something's happening in
Ventura County. I could just use both of you all
as exhibition A. Because you're brilliant and
sensitive and courageous young folk who's trying
to make a difference. The issue of what it means
to be an intellectual is a crucial one. I would
want to recommend the book by the great Richard
Hofstadter called Anti Intellectualism in America.
It was published in 1963. Why is that important?
Because he understood that America has always been
profoundly anti intellectual. He understood
there's a sense in which the business of America's
business has been very much about making money.
The vocation of being an intellectual is always
over against simply making money. Everybody's got
to make money. Everybody's got to have some cash
flow. But to be an intellectual is to have a
certain calling, certain vocation. And that
vocation is to invest oneself in the life of the
mind and the world of ideas so that you try to
get people to think critically about themselves,
about society, about the world. And he draws a
very important distinction between intellect and
intelligence, because America's always been very
much for intelligence when it's tied to making
money. We can go from Thomas Edison to Jeff Bezos.
These a highly intelligent folk tied to making money.
And as I say, you know, there's nothing wrong with
making money as long as it doesn't become a fetish
or an idol. As long as it doesn't generate an
indifference inside of you toward the suffering of
others. But the intellectual is he or she who is
willing to pay any cost and bear any burden to
raise the issues of truth. So, like Socrates, he's
raising the issues of truth. What happened to
Socrates? Oh, my God, he got the hemlock. Oh,
Jesus, raising the issues of truth makes his way
to the temple, runs out the money changers on his
way to the cross. Oh, my God, he got. You got a
serious price to pay. So that there's always a
tension between the calling of vocation, of the
truth seeking intellectual, as opposed to the
money seeking business man or woman who is very
suspicious of intellectuals. Another way of
putting it is intelligence puts forward immediate
evaluations. Intellect evaluates the evaluations.
It looks at the deeper assumptions, the deeper
presuppositions, and in that way there's always an
end, but not up. James Baldwin talked about the
lover's quarrel that intellectuals have with their
own country. Because they're willing to be
critical, to try to make it better. Does that begin
to get at what you are after, my dear sister Pauline?
Pauline: Definitely. Gerald, I will pass it on to you for
the second question.
Dr. West: Brother Gerald, who is that
wonderful couple, you got behind you there man?
Gerald: Those are my parents. Old photo.
Dr. West: Ooh, what's their name, man?
Gerald: Gerald Richardson the Second, and Marcia Richardson.
Dr. West: Gerald and Marcia that makes you the third?
Gerald: Yes.
Dr. West: Oh, we need
to put that. Oh you got the third on there. Yeah,
you've got third. You showed. I didn't see that third. No,
I kept looking at that beautiful picture because
that's part of all their love that's going into the
making and shaping of who you are. You know what I
mean? I got her beautiful picture somewhere. I
just can't see them. But we can see your beautiful
parents. Go right ahead.
Gerald: So I'm curious on your
thoughts on color blindness. It's pervasive in
education in particular, and we see this idea of
professors and people in general having this idea
that, "I don't see color," or that color does not
matter. What are your thoughts on that?
Dr. West: Yeah, you
know, I just don't believe it. I don't believe it.
I think that it's, people who say they don't
see colors they mean something than what I think
you and I are talking about. And I think to grow
up in America, it's impossible for people to deny
that color doesn't operate, race doesn't operate,
and when one sees somebody just act as if they have
no color whatsoever. I think what they
really mean is for so long to see Black people of
meant to associate us with a certain kind of
inferiority and in people who say I'm colorblind,
what you're saying is, "Well, I don't associate you
with inferiority, but I still see your blackness.
Because somebody looks at me and say they don't
see my blackness at all. I said, "What are you
looking at? Some Platonic form of Aristotelian
essence. I got a body, you know, and my hair is a
certain kind of shape." But you can acknowledge it.
You know, you see my blackness, but my blackness
is all I can tell you what humanity you see. But
for me is that I think that we have to reject
being colorblind and we have to affirm being
lovestruck. You see, I'm a Christian, you see,
so when you see folk, you ought to be able to
affirm, approve, and even fall in love with the
best of them. Fall in love, not in an intimate way,
but a love with the fact that they're human beings.
They have a preciousness, they have a dignity,
they have a sanctity. And so that connects you
with them. And so if we're lovestruck, rather than
colorblind, then we don't have to lie to ourselves
and say, "I'll never see color whatsoever." I don't
know about that. Then you wanna ask, "Well, you got a
son? You got a daughter? Oh, yes, I do. You didn't
notice what color Jamal was when he came home with
your daughter. Are you really saying that? I didn't notice
what color Jamal, was at all?" Okay. Okay. Hard to
believe. Hard to believe. So that we had to be able
to revel in each other's humanity without claiming
that somehow we're not seeing color. Because
people's humanity comes in different colors. It comes
in different languages. It comes in different genders,
different sexual orientations, and so forth. So
there's nothing wrong with embracing our
particularity, in this case color and still being
tied to universality, which is to say our humanity.
Is that beginning to get at it?
Gerald: More than, you know,
that was amazing. Thank you.
Dr. West: Thank you.
Pauline: Thank you Gerald for asking this question. That is
definitely something that needs to be shed light
on. So thank you for that. Dr. West, what are your
thoughts, sorry. As a professor, what do you see as the
strength of this generation and things that you
give pause to?
Dr. West: Ooh, wonderful question. I
appreciate this conversation with you all. You know,
it's hard for me to fully grasp the richness of
the younger generation. I'm old school, you know,
I'm OG from way back. I'll be almost 70 years old
pretty soon and I spend a lot of time with young
people. I insist on teaching freshmen just to be
able to stay in contact with young people. But
young people are growing up in the most
commodified culture in the history of the world,
the most market driven, market saturated culture
in the history of the world. And what are markets
about? Markets are about money. They're about profit.
They're about manipulation. They're about us
titillation and stimulation. Whereas, what young
people are hungry for, is
that which nourishes them, hearts, minds, and souls.
Yes, they want to make money. Yes, they want
status, but in the end, they also want care. They
also want concern. They also want love. They want
justice. Those are non-market values. Fidelity. They
want trust. Another way of putting it is that I
discovered that the younger generation, they are
hungry for the real thing. They tired of fakes
and phonies. They tired of frauds. They tired
of people posing and posturing one way and
actually really being something else. See, I would
highly recommend that young people listen to some
Ashford and Simpson. Nicholas Ashford, Valerie
Simpson had that song, "Ain't Nothing Like The Real
Thing." And what is the real thing, the real thing
is beneath all the superficiality. He said, "You're
not going to fake the funk." Now, young folk don't
wanna fake the funk, they want the real thing and
the real thing is the love, the friendship, the
struggling with truth, the struggling with justice,
the struggling with fairness, even when we're wrong..
All of us as human beings will be wrong, at some
point. But you have to say what you mean, you got
to mean what you say. That's the real thing. That
to me is something that young folk are hungry for.
Would you all agree or disagree with that? With
that formulation?
Gerald: Agree 100 percent.
Dr. West: Does that make
sense to both of you?
Pauline: Definitely.
Dr. West: That's good. That's good.
That's good.
Gerald: I'm curious, as a political philosopher,
I'm curious your thoughts on this. As you know, we
are in California and Proposition 16, which was
affirmative action, it actually failed in
California. The voters did not vote for it. So I'm
wondering, what are your thoughts on affirmative
action policies? Are they effective, or what do you
think of race conscious policies that establish
equity? What would be your ideal policy?
Dr. West: Well, one
is, you know, I've been fighting my dear brother,
Ward Connerly and I from the same city of
Sacramento. He's from Sacramento. And he and I
have been clashing on this for a long, long,
long time. I love my brother, you know, I'm a
Christian, I try to love everybody, but at the same
time, I've got some political foes and I can stay
in contact with the humanity of my foes and still
have deep disagreement. But there's no doubt that
affirmative action is something that not only has
played a fundamental role, I wouldn't even be
where I am without affirmative action, because the
racism and I would add sexism too, was cut so deep
all the way up until the 1970s and 80s when it
began, when affirmative action began to have some
impact. Now, affirmative action, unfortunately,
doesn't connect with our precious poor brothers and
sisters. Doesn't affect many working class
brothers and sisters. Much of a more middle class
affair. For those who have educations. Only 31
percent of folks in America who even go to college. So
you got 68, 69 percent don't go at all. And so
affirmative action, especially in higher education,
has been confined to a certain group. But
affirmative action is very important. Why? Because
there's still institutional racism in the
country. There's still individual racism in the
country. And people have to be accountable when
they're engaged in judgments based on those kinds
of racist biases. And so all affirmative action
was saying is we've got a certain pool of
qualified people and for so long there's been Black
people who are qualified but never given a chance.
So once you meet those minimal qualifications, for
faculty, staff, students, then everybody in
that pool ought to be taken seriously and you
ought to be conscious about the fact that two
hundred and forty four years of racist slavery,
almost one hundred years of racist neo slavery
called Jim and Jane Crow, and those effects, the
consequences are still at work, both in our
structures as well as in our minds. So all
affirmative action was saying is we have to be
conscious of that. And the same would be true with
women, given it ugly patriarchal practices that
have been going on for so long. So in that sense,
I think that it's sad that the state of
California rejected that. There's a lot of
misinformation out there. There's a lot of
disinformation out there. And this is the
second time California has done that. People think
of California, it's so progressive, it's so liberal and so
what you say. "Well, it depends on what the issue
is." You see, "In Mississippi, well we understand," well
Mississippi got some progressive folk, too, but
not like California on certain issues. But when it
comes to affirmative action voting, California,
the other states, California, still behind, but I
mean, it's a complex issue and you can imagine, you know, the
debate, Ward and the others they got their
reasons in terms of liberties. They've got their
reasons in terms of low expectations, and that we
never want to have low expectations of anybody,
especially Black students, especially brown
students. But at the same time, I think you have
to make sure you have countervailing forces
against the institutional and personal racism that
is still very much operative, not just in Ventura
County, it's operative at Harvard University, it's
operated at Yale, it's operative at Princeton, it's
operative at University of Chicago, is operative at
University of New Mexico. It's across the country, it's
not just California. It is a domestic national
issue.
Gerald: Thank you, brother West. Just a follow up question,
do you think there are other effective race
conscious policies that California could possibly
introduce?
Dr. West: That's a good question, no, I mean,
I think there's ways of trying to gain access to
highly talented Black and brown and Indigenous
Asian brothers and sisters, but you have to be
creative about it. You've got to be creative about
it. So that, for example, we always have a group of
of White brothers and sisters or vanilla of
brothers and sisters who are committed to fairness,
who are committed to justice. And there's ways in
which through their networks, they can still bring
in some high quality Black and brown and
Indigenous peoples. You see it I mean, they just
had to be courageous and how to go about doing it.
You see, that's the key. That's the key.
Gerald: Definitely.
Dr. West: Indeed. Indeed.
Pauline: We'll go on to the next
question. Thank you, Dr. West. How has your view of
civil rights changed over the years? How has the
dialogue about critical social issues changed over
the years?
Dr. West: Ooh, that's a good one, now. Well,
I was blessed, you know, to grow up in Sacramento,
California, at a time in which Martin Luther King
Jr. was still alive. I saw him speak at Memorial
Auditorium, downtown Sacramento when he was shot
down in Memphis, on the porch there at Lorraine Hotel
I was in student body President, Kennedy High. We
organized student body presidents throughout the city.
We shut down the city with a student strike till
they had black studies in those high schools,
right? Now, at that time, civil rights had to do
with not just voting, not just access to suburbs,
that have been discriminating against Black people,
but it also was spilling over, into what Malcolm X
called human rights. And so we begin to talk about
the right to food, the right to shelter, the right
to a job with a living wage, and then the right to
health care. That's why I spent so much time with
my dear brother Bernie Sanders, right? He was saying
health care is a right. It doesn't have to be mediated by
the market in terms of what kind of job you have,
if you lose your job, lose your health care and so
forth. And millions and millions of Americans
don't have health care in the richest nation in
the history of the world. No, there ought to be a
right to health care. It's like there's a right to
water. You see, you got to de-commodify it, you
know, it's not a matter of just having money, in
order to have health care or having a job just to
have health care. So in that sense, a human right
is really the starting point for me, and it has
been ever since I was 14 years old. I mean, it's
very interesting how people still call me a civil
rights activist because I've been a human rights
activist all my life. I'm concerned about human
rights of my brothers, sisters in Pakistan and
Libya, in Somalia, vis a vis US drones. I'm
concerned about the human rights of my Jewish
brothers and sisters in Russia, my Palestinian
brothers, sisters on the Israeli occupation. I'm
concerned about human rights in Tibet and Kashmir
and so forth. I try to be morally consistent. Gets you
a lot of trouble. That's all right. Nothing's
going to stand in the way of my love for oppressed
people wherever they are in the world, no matter
how unpopular it is. That's all right with me. I'm
a Christian. I'm following an un pompous, a
very unpopular Palestinian Jew named Jesus. And if he was
around, he would say the Palestinians, the
Israelis, the Ethiopians, the Russians, all of
them have equal value. And when they are suffering,
I'm going to raise my voice, no matter what. But
it's got to have that moral and spiritual
integrity to it, you see? And in that sense, I
think it's interesting when I say, "Well, you're a
civil rights act." But what they're really saying
and that's a compliment, they're saying, "We know
you, a Black man, everybody calls him a
civil rights must be black." Well no you got a lot of
White civil rights activists. They don't call them
civil rights activists. They think about Martin King.
That's a compliment for me, right, because Martin
King is one of the great figures, but was Martin
King, only a civil rights activist? No, he said a
baby in Vietnam has the same value as a baby in
America. That's beyond civil rights. He's talking
about US imperial policy in Asia and he called it
that, but they still called him a civil rights activist.
Malcolm X civil rights activist, but no he said he was a
human rights activist, right, coming out of a rich Muslim
tradition with all of the prophetic possibilities
of the Muslim tradition. Just like the Judaic
tradition, prophetic possibilities out of Judaism.
Just like my own Christian tradition, prophetic
possibilities out of the Christian tradition. But
each one of those traditions also had a whole lot
of challenges. Judaism, Christianity, Islam,
oftentimes they too patriarchal. Oftentimes, they
are too homophobic. Oftentimes they're too tribal,
they only concerned about just a small slice of
humanity and not human beings across the board.
You see what I mean? So each one of those
traditions have struggles, has struggles within them.
And that's the way it's always been, I think
that's probably the way it will always be.
Pauline: Thank you for that and thank you for bringing
light. I got very excited when you started talking
about the Israeli and Palestinian conflict,
because I don't think a lot of people bring light
to that issue. So I have a follow up question for
that. How have your politics around global issues
made you controversial?
Dr. West: Oh, I've just controversial
from the very beginning when we had that strike,
when I was 14 years old, they said, "Brother
you put on this strike you're never going to get
into college because they're gonna keep track of you
when you's applying to college, you'd already shut
the city down with the student strike." I said,
"Well, that's just going to have to be what it is,"
you see. Then we had struggles around Latin
America in El Salvador. We had struggles around
Honduras. When I went to New York City and I
encountered one of the great public intellectuals of
the 20th century named Edward Said. And he and I
used to go down to The New York Times and said,
you should use the word occupation rather than
disputed territories. Occupation was in the making.
This is way back in the 70s and the 80s, but it was
based on the same kind of moral and spiritual
willingness. And I think part of the problem, the
reason why it is difficult to have a serious and
respectful conversation about our precious Jewish
Israeli brothers and sisters and precious
Palestinian brothers and sisters, because it's
been a taboo issue. People don't want to touch it.
And you have to be able to confront taboo issues.
So you got a lot of people who want to talk about
every issue, but that issue. You say, "Well,
wait, wait, wait a minute. Now we got to be
consistent. You got to stay in contact with humanity of your
Jewish brothers. You got to stay in contact with
humanity of your Palestinian brothers, sisters." And I say
over and over again, if there were a Palestinian
occupation of precious Jewish brothers and sisters,
there would be a major, major conversation in the
country. [Pauline]: I agree. [Dr. West]: You see, and I would be just as upset I'd
be with my Jewish, Palestinian brothers, "Quit
occupying the Jewish brothers and sisters on moral
spiritual ground." Now, it's the opposite. Now you
got Israeli occupation. I'll say exactly the same
thing. How come? Because I love both of them, both of
them are human beings. And if both of them are
dominating anybody that is called into question,
just like me and Gerald, if we were part of a
black supremacist country, if Black people had
treated White people the way White people treated
Black people, we would be in solidarity with the White
brothers and sisters. We don't want to be associated
with black dominators just because we black.
Domination is wrong no matter who does it, right?
But that's not the case. We don't live in a black
supremacist civilization. We live in a
civilization shaped by white supremacy. And so
based on the same moral spiritual grounds, we're in
solidarity with those folks. Of course, we got the
history of black gangsters and black thugs
everywhere because every community got gangsters
and thugs. You got Jewish thugs, you got
Palestinian thugs. And we got to be against
thuggery, across the board. Right? Why? Because
we're committed to what is right, what is moral,
and what is just, and what is right and moral and
just is never a function of just race, gender,
sexual orientation, nation. Every identity must be
grounded in a moral and spiritual integrity and a
global solidarity. That's the key. But for so long
in the United States, you know, Black folk
remained invisible, just like Palestinians for so
long had been rendered invisible. Their suffering
invisible, black suffering, invisible. And we can
see that of other groups as well.
Pauline: Thank you for that. [Gerald]: Thank you. For sure. What are your
thoughts about the recent insurrection?
Dr. West: Oh, you
mean the, someone of our sick, more thuggish White
brothers and sisters who took over the Capitol the
other day? [Gerald]: Yup. [Dr. West]: Well, one is that. You know, we
have a long history of vigilante activity on
behalf of, enacted by white supremacist militia
groups. Many of us, you know, have our own names on their on
the list in terms of who they want to hunt down.
Now, the groups are about, what, about 900? I saw
the same thing when I was in Charlottesville, 2017.
We had the neo-nazis and the Klan, you know,
spiritually sick White brothers, some sisters,
some White sisters, mainly White brothers who were coming
at us tooth and nail. What has happened on the
Trump has become more they feel more
emboldened. So it spills over now in the public.
They've always been there. Always been there very much so, and
part of the progress of the country is to try to
cut back on the white supremacist sensibilities
and mentalities in the country. And there has been
some progress on that. You know, you go back 50,
60 years ago, a lot of those same folk who stormed
the Capitol, they were running states,
They were governors. They were running
committees in Congress. They were senators, you
see. So there's been some attempt to push it back.
But any time you attempt to push it back, what do
you get? A backlash.
And we've seen the backlash against any perceived
progress on behalf of Black people and brown
people and others, and since '65, we've had
such a racist and white supremacist immigration
policy that was enacted in 1924, pushed by deeply
conservative folk, including the Klan at 1924
to '65, it was mainly just
White brothers and sisters from Europe who could get gain access.
After '65 now, large numbers of brothers and sisters from
Asia, Middle East, Africa start coming in the
country. These beautiful folk from Nigeria,
Ethiopia, Uganda, Pakistan, Afghanistan, Singapore,
folks from the Middle East come marching in from Persia,
Iran, and so oh everybody getting nervous. "Oh, well, we've always
believed in immigration, but we didn't really have
in mind these particular immigrants. I don't know
why they can't be more vanilla. I have a
commitment to immigration in America, but I just
discovered that it's not as deep as I thought
because these particular immigrants, they make me
uncomfortable. Oh, really?" And then, of course, as
a Black man, I say, "Well, how long you've been in
the country? Well, my grandmother came. Oh, so you
haven't been here that long. What makes you the
definitive authority on defining what is America?
You just got here. I've been here 12 generations.
And I embrace them."
Isn't that interesting? Oh, we got a struggle
going on, right? Serious struggle going on. And so
part of what happened on January 6 was that you
get this backlash deeply xenophobic. You know,
it's anti black, it's anti brown, deeply anti Jewish,
Nazi presence there, deeply anti gay and
lesbian and trans and non binary, deeply
homophobic. You see, I mean, I think those are
salient issues. There are some economic issues as
well that's worth noting, namely that some of
the folk there are suffering economically. But
instead of organizing to confront the most
powerful, they'd rather scapegoat the most
vulnerable. You see, so when, in fact, it looks
like their jobs are precarious, they don't
confront the bosses, they confront our precious
Mexican brothers and sisters in California, for
example. And the Mexican brothers to say "We're not
running nothing.
We don't have power to beat the shape the destiny of your
situation. Yes, there'll be some competition when
we get here, but there's powers at in high places
that created the very context. Why don't you
confront them?" Oh cowardly and not enough vision.
And that's true for Americans, whatever color they
are, because you've got Black folk who also
have anti-immigrant sensibilities against our
precious Mexican brothers and sisters, because they also
accept the mainstream perception rather than get
beneath the mainstream perception. That's what
truth is. Truth is always beneath the superficial
dialogue. Always, beneath. Listen to the Republican
Party. Listen to the Democratic Party. Do you
think either of them are telling the full truth?
No. You got to get beneath. Back, when we talked
about the vocation of intellectual. You look at
the basic assumptions and presuppositions. You
evaluate the evaluations. You evaluate the
framework that people are trying to put us in. We
got to expand the framework. Just to give you one
example, Martin Luther King Jr. was trying to break
the back of American apartheid and he would have
these negotiations, you know, with a number of the
the other white elites in Alabama, they would say,
"Well, you know, Reverend King, we think there
ought to be a liberal version of Jim Crow." What
that would be as well. "Well, you know, we're still
going to have Jim Crow. We're still going to have
segregation, but we'll allow some spaces for the
black middle class to have some opportunities." And
he said, "No, I'm an abolitionist, I want to get beneath
the superficial. I want to abolish Jim Crow. I
don't want a liberal version of Jim Crow." That's
like a liberal version of slavery. "Well, there
have been some slave holders who will treat some of
the slaves very nicely and kindly on the weekend."
No we want to abolish slavery. We don't want a
liberal version of slavery. Well so it is with
poverty for me. So it is with a number of issues.
I want to abolish poverty across the board. I want
to abolish decrepit schools. I want to abolish
student debt. We got to do away with some of this
stuff, you see, and they said, "Oh, you're so
radical?" You don't say. You don't say. Yes, that's
exactly right. Why? Because radical means get to
the root and when you get to the root, you're
going to get beneath the superficial discourse. I
want to abolish patriarchy. "Oh brother West, you're
going too far. I think we're going to have a
moderate version of patriarchy." No, no, no
women's humanity, women's potentiality ought to be
unleashed across the board. I want to abolish
homophobia. You a dreamer? That's right. You got
the right, brother. I'm a freedom dreamer. I'm a
love dreamer. I'm a healing dreamer. And we'll go down
faithful to that dream before the worms get my
body.
Pauline: Gerald, did you want to ask...
So I have the next question, the Central Park
Karen, had criminal charges of making a false
report dropped in New York City. Talk to us about
how the legal system has different standards for
whites and people of color?
Dr. West: Yeah, one, you know, I've been blessed to
teach in prisons since 1977. And
it has been a beautiful, joyful experience. Some
of the most brilliant folks I've ever met have
been behind bars. I've had a student get a Ph.D.,
became professor of philosophy, Pace University,
brother Anthony, Anthony Edwards. He died just
recently,
coming right out of jail. And I've seen it go from
two thousand people in jail over to many. I've seen
the expansion of the mass incarceration machine.
Why? Because Black folk, brown folk, have roughly
the same percentage of folks involved in drug
activities, but they're over 60 percent of the
convictions. See, that's racism, at its very deep
level, you see. But it's not just racism, but also class.
It's also class that we talk about poor and
working class Black people. Poor and working class
brown people. It's also poor and working class White
people, but disproportionately black and brown.
And the best example there, of course, is 2008.
You got a massive Wall Street crimes, insider trading,
market manipulation, predatory lending, fraudulent
activities. How many Wall Street executives went
to jail? Zero. Zero. My dear brother, Obama, he met
with them in March of 2009. What did he say? He
said, "I stand between you and the pitchforks that
the people have coming at you, but I will protect
you. I will be on your side." He sided with Wall
Street. He bailed out Wall Street. He didn't bail
out main street. And he and Eric Holder as his
Attorney General, who himself comes out of Wall
Street, both are black, but siding with Wall
Street. And hence I was very critical of them
based on moral and spiritual grounds because it
shows that Wall Street can engage in crimes, and
there's no responsibility. But you get pressure,
Jamal and Latisha committing a crime and they go
straight to jail. You get Jose and Juanita
committing they go straight to jail. So that's both
races and classes. And that needs to be called
into question. We must have a fair rule of law
across the board. And so these are examples of the
ways in which we have to be vigilant with our
voices, we have to be vigilant with our bodies.
That's why some of us hit the streets. Some of us
go to jail, and in the end, someone must be
willing to die, for what we believe. This is what I
tell young people all the time, you know, don't
think of yourself as first and foremost having a
brain. Think of yourself as first and foremost
having a cause.
Now you can use your brand for your cause. You can
use your market for justice. You can use your job,
your career for something bigger than you, but if
all you got is a brain, then you've already sold
your soul for mess of pottage. Because the black
freedom tradition did not engage in sacrifice just
for Black folk to have brands, we came from Africa
and we were branded. Brand on our bodies.
We must use our success for moral and spiritual
greatness. And moral and spiritual greatness has to
do with the quality of service to others. I
believe in the biblical definition of great is he
or she is greatest among you will serve. Whatever
your gifts are, you can sing, like a river, he's
going to render that those gifts in such a way
that she touches your soul. You a doctor like
Charles Drew? He's going to heal in such a way
that the angels sing. You a pharmacist, you a
sanitation worker? You're there to serve. If you're
a student in Ventura County, all the brilliance,
all your sharpness, you still want to use that to
what? Help somebody. To be of service to somebody.
That's a cause, that's not just the brain, and
that's something that needs to be said over and
over again in this society. And of course, so many
young people like yourself, you all understand
what I talk about. You wouldn't be members of the
Black students association, you wouldn't be members of the
student groups that's trying to be a force for
good, bigger than your own egos, bigger than your
own careers. You got callings, not just careers.
Gerald: You are just brilliant. I just have one final
question and then Pauline will take us into our
Q&A. So recently, we've seen how your moral and
spiritual grounding and just activism has caused
you to get in a little bit of trouble. Some good
trouble, though. So my question is, on your journey
of heightened awareness and the dismantling of
racism, in the fight for human rights, how do you
find the tenacity to keep up the good fight? What
inspires you and what motivates you to keep
fighting for people like us?
Dr. West: Well, I mean, one is,
you know, I told you about Cliff and Irene, you see if
people had a chance to meet my father, you could
see how far I fall short. You know, I
could never be the human being he was. He died in
1994. He's overlooking me all the
time. You know what I mean? He set such high
standard. The world doesn't know that much about
him. I know. The world might think a whole lot
about me. I said, "You met Dad. You better put me in
context. You better put me in context." And so that
to be the second son of Clifton and
Irene is the greatest honor I've ever had. So I
know what the standards are, the same is true to
come out of Shiloh Baptist Church. So by the time
you get to Martin Luther King Jr., well he's like
dad and dad's like him, he set a standard. Now, all
of these are human beings. What does that mean?
They got faults. They got foibles. Dad wasn't
perfect. But the basic orientation of his mind,
heart, and soul, and body was to treat people right.
To have integrity. To have honesty. To have a
sensitivity to the suffering of others, no matter
who they are, and a generosity to others, you see.
And as long as I have memories of, as long as I
know what the standards are, I'm willing to pay
whatever price it is, with a smile too. Now, with a
little style, not as much style as both of y'all. Both of y'all
got a whole lot style. I'm trying to catch up on
style front, but certainly with a smile. Because
we start with gratitude. Life was a gift. Struggle
is a gift. Sanity is a gift. And we have to be
willing to pay back with that gift. Our very
service is a form of giving, and in the end, your
life is a gift. So that when you think of the gift
character and the gift quality of our lives, then
you have gratitude, as well as sometimes some
attitude. Attitude and a sense of, "Don't mess with
me because I don't put up with disrespect." I'm a
son to Clifton, and Irene. Y'all may not
understand what that means, but I know what it
means. You see, I don't play no games when it comes
to Cliff and Irene, because they stand too tall.
And I see the same thing in your precious parents
right there behind you. Same commitment to dignity.
Sister Pauline, she got the same thing, even though
she ain't got the pictures of her parents in the
back. We can still see them. We can still see them.
The love that they put inside of both of you all
for you to be the most excellent ones, the morally,
spiritually great ones, that is a magnificent gift.
We must never, ever, ever forget it and never
allow the world to take away that joy and that
memory. Never allow the world to take that
away.
Pauline: Thank you, Dr. West. I just have one question, one
more question, and then we will go into the Q and
A. Your situation at Harvard. Why do you think you
have not been tenured?
Dr. West: Well, you know, there could only be
three reasons. One is because I'm too old and I am
getting older. There's no doubt about that. But I
still get a lot of energy. But there's been other
professors who were, who underwent tenure
process and received tenure, who are older than me. So
I figured it couldn't be age for the most part.
Some people say, "Well, his best works are behind
him." Well, I've got the Gifford Lectures. This
is very prestigious set of lectures in Edinburgh,
Scotland, people even state that Gifford Lectures,
the kind of Nobel Prize in Philosophy. So that
committee invites me to give the Gifford Lectures
three years from now. They're saying, "We think brother
West still has something to say." It can't be
that everything that I have, that I will contribute
is behind me. So it can't be age. It can't be academics,
because if I got twenty two books. I got tenure
thirty seven years ago at Yale. University
Professor at Harvard, University Professor at
Princeton, what is University Professor, the highest honor
for a faculty member. So it couldn't be academics.
So it had to be politics. It had to be politics,
and I don't think my support of my dear brother
Bernie Sanders, upsets the powers that be at Harvard.
Now, Bernie, you know, he could be
viewed as a radical brother, but he's still part
of a kind of mainstreams within the Democratic
Party. So what other issues could it be? Well,
this is where I zero in on the Israeli-Palestinian
issue, that I'm thoroughly convinced that it is
precisely my outspokenness against the mainstream
that deeply upsets a Harvard administration who
would have to give their stamp of approval on
someone who is so critical of the Israeli
occupation and actually supports the boycott,
and divestment and sanctions movement. And once you
accept once you support that movement, you usually
usually cast as being an anti Jewish or
anti-Semitic person. And I say, "You can call me
any name you want," but I'm never going to
stoop as low as to hate Jews. I'm never going to
stoop as low to hate any group. But I do hate
injustice. And any group that promotes or
perpetuates injustice will receive my moral
critique and my witness, and I'll be in solidarity
with the folk who are suffering. And so just an
attempt to try to think of what could be the
reasons, what are the grounds of the reasons,
that's my conclusion.
Gerald: Do you ever regret having these political stances
because of the repercussions that you're getting?
Dr. West: No, not at all. No, not at all. Definitely. Not at
all. [Gerald]: Just know if you need me in Cambridge, I'll
be right there with...
Dr. West: You and sister Pauline, you all have some magnificent
work still to do there in Ventura, so I can
feel your support and solidarity across the nation,
but you all stay on work that you're doing. You
know what I mean? That's what I should be saying,
is any way I can be supportive, I'm going to give
you my phone number, in any way I can be supportive,
you let me know. Because it's very important that
the younger generation be connected to the
struggles for integrity and honesty, struggles for
love and justice. [Gerald]: Right. So we have a question
from Adam in the Q&A, "Over the summer, we have seen
the movement to defund the police become
relatively mainstream. What do you think of this
movement? Do you think that the police and prisons
are obsolete? What does the phrase for
Michelle Alexander re-imagined justice mean to you?
Dr. West: Wonderful question. Michelle Alexander, she's my
dear sister. She teaches at the Great Union Theological
Seminary in New York. I've spent so much time we'll
probably end up going back there. I think that one
we've got to start at the top. There's already
been massive defunding of the police in terms of
the institution that's supposed to police Wall
Street. They call it deregulation. Defund it. Take
the money out of it. Wall Street runs free. No
regulation. No policing. So the from the very
beginning, we have to always put it within the
larger framework. There has been a defunding of
the police of the Pentagon. You see, the Pentagon gets
big money, who's going to police the Pentagon?
Hardly anybody, they don't have no money. They do what they
want. Just like Wall Street. Do what they want. It
only becomes the issue defunding the police when
you talk about poor people, Black people. You see.
Why? Because the intent of the police when it
comes to poor people to contain and suppress too
often. But this is not true across the board, I
heard actually the mayor and the police chief
in Ventura, back this summer. I think it is
Lavere, what's his name? Lavere
and the police, and they were talking about how
they have to be committed to treating Black and
brown people with humanity. I agree wholeheartedly.
Wholeheartedly. But it's going to be a matter of
ensuring that the police themselves are
accountable. The Wall Street elites haven't been
accountable. They got away with it. You see. The
police doing wonderful things. We applaud. Police
doing negative things. You don't just come out and
say, we're sorry they're doing it. You say they
must be accountable. If the police killing people,
they need to have a fair trial and go to a fair
trial and go to jail. How many policemen actually
go to jail, given all these folk who get killed?
Hardly anybody. It means they're not serious about
accountability. See what I mean? And you have to
say that. And when you say it, well, they say, "Oh,
wow, you hate the police? I don't hate the police.
I hate the police killing folk. I hate the
police brutalized. I hate to see the police get
killed. I hate to see the police get brutalized, but
I'm against brutalization across the board and
trying to be consistent means getting misunderstood.
Because oftentimes people want to protect one
group and they don't want the other group to be
accountable. So that the defunding the police simply
means having a system of law enforcement where you
treat Black and brown people with respect, and
when you don't, you are accountable. You have to
pay consequences in the same way that any other
citizen who brutalizes other people has to be
accountable. I'm sorry, that's a long answer, but
we have to keep the larger context in
mind because, you know, it's just going on for so
long. I mean, I don't know of a Black man in
America who hasn't had a negative and ugly
encounter with the police. I've had so many I
can't even count.
I mean, and it's just a reality. My brother, my
father, my son, my grandson, across the board. And
people want to act as if, "Well, you just got to
get used to it, you want to normalize it," no
because when it happens to somebody else, it can
become a major crisis. But what happens to Black
folk we supposed to get used to it. No. No way. No
way. No. I know you guys got some other questions. I'm sorry
go. [Pauline]: Thank you for I think a lot of people
needed to hear the comment about you saying I
don't know any I mean, sorry, I'm trying to read
my thoughts. I don't know any Black man that
hasn't gone through police brutality. And I'm so,
so glad you said that. So thank you for that. I
just like to mention one more thing. We have a lot
an overflow of questions. We will not be able to
get to a lot of them, but we will choose a few. So,
given that we have a question from Dina. "I am a
Puerto Rican, gay woman who wants to love out loud.
Sometimes that gets me in trouble. What advice do
you have for me?" [Dr. West]: One is you want to be in contact
with that rich tradition of Puerto Rican brothers and
sisters, Julia de Burgos, one of the greatest
poets of the 20th century. She was wrestling with
her forms of sexuality, but she was also a love
warrior and a freedom fighter and a wounded healer.
She died there in Harlem. But what you
want is you always want to be connected with
voices, voices of the dead that come through books
or internet. Voices of the quick. Voices of those
who are alive, that you can still hear, you see.
And the Puerto Rican traditions, especially that
Puerto Rican tradition that radically calls into
question US colonialism, going all the way back to
Albizu Campos and Lolita Lebron, music of
Hernandez and the Puerto Rican culture is the hybrid
culture, of course, Indigenous peoples, there's
African peoples and European peoples all mixed
together in blood and culture and so forth. So you
want to use that as wind at your back the same way
when I was talking about Donny Hathaway, and Curtis
Mayfield, Aretha Franklin, and John Coltrane, and
Sarah Vaughan, I mean, that's my particular
culture that keeps me on the right track, allows
me to preserve my sanity, because living in
America as a Black man, you could go crazy. But it
also preserves my dignity and my generosity.
Coltrane You're Blowing a Love Supreme. That's not
just a song. That's a way of life. How you doin'
Coltrane? Because I had my mother. I had my father.
I had Monk and the others keeping me on the right
track. Clifford Brown and Mary Lou Williams. That
was my community. And he had Amazigh in
church, his grandfather was a great pastor that he
had all of those folk inside of him. Sister Pauline,
you got the same kind of love inside of you coming
out of your respected tradition. Brother Gerald, you
got similar love coming out of you, out of your
respected tradition. You got to hold on to that
because so much of the world is trying to tease
that out of you. So you end up not tied to freedom,
not tied to love, not tied to healing, and most
importantly, they want to make you scared. You see,
they want to keep you afraid.
And the Puerto Rican tradition has always said the
great ones had rather be dead than afraid. Mary
Ellen Pleasant, a Black sister who was there in San
Francisco, first multi-million man in the Black
community. Madam Walker was number two. She was
the first one. She married a White brother who was
a rather baron. He dropped dead. So she got all his
money and she became the founder of human rights
in California in terms of generating all these
different centers and so on. She gave John Brown a
White brother who died for Black people. She gave
him nine hundred thousand dollars in 1858. And that's
the year before he attacked harpers ferry. And what did
she used to say? She started to speak. "I'd rather
be a corpse than a coward." Everybody don't
have to follow that, but you know what the standard is.
Stay away from cowardliness. Stay away from being
afraid, and that doesn't mean you want to be
corpse quit, but it means you're not going to
fall into being scared and afraid. You see, that's
the crucial thing, because as long as we're afraid
and scared, people, don't want to get in trouble
as brother John Lewis said.
Gerald: Beautifully said with that, I will pass it on to
Ka Ren MacCalla, so she has some questions from the
live audience.
Ka Ren: Hello, this is a question from Matthew Morris, he
asked, "How do we hold our academic institutions
accountable for the negligent atmosphere that has
led to so many spiritual and mental deaths of
Black men and women? How do you know they have had
enough since these institutions don't already have
a clear picture of when the goals of equitable
treatment is meant to heal our campus and student
body? [Dr. West]: Oh, that's a heavy one, my dear sister
Ka Ren. I know sister Trinity also got her powerful views
on this. We all in it together. But I come back to
this issue of accountability. But the
accountability is the level of students, at the
level of staff, I'm talking about the labor force,
and the level of administration, faculty, and all the
way up to president. Now, how do we keep each other
accountable so that we all are committed to
treating each other decently and with respect?
Because you're so right. There's been so many
casualties. So many causalities. If I was not a strong,
free Black man, I'd be a casualty right now.
But I don't worry about it because I got my armor
together. See, I'm ever ready. I'm never surprised
at evil. I'm never paralyzed by despair. I'm a
blues man. Blues man can take any catastrophe with
style and a smile and keep moving. Doesn't mean you're not
wounded. Doesn't mean you're not scarred, doesn't mean
you're not torn, but you just keep on moving.
Curtis Mayfield said what? Keep on pushing. Keep
on pushing with your eyes toward the standards of
excellence. See, but, I've been blessed in a
certain way. And you are so right. That's what
your question is so heart felt for all of us, no
matter what color we are. The last thing we want
in Ventura County, is folks falling through the
cracks, precious students falling through the
cracks. Of course, we don't care what color, but
so often it's disproportionately our precious Black
brothers and sisters, brown brothers and sisters,
and so forth, you see. And we've got to keep the
pressure on the accountability, take the form of
pressure, intellectual pressure, moral pressure,
spiritual pressure, and institutional pressure.
Is that begin to get the get at that question?
You think to sister Ka Ren?
Oh do you have that mute on? You have that mute. [Ka Ren]: I'm sorry. [Dr. West]: Oh,
yeah, no, there it is, absolutely, absolutely.
Ka Ren: The next question is, "How can we move our nation
towards representation that includes a broader
range of values?" [Dr. West]: Well, it's got to be my example.
It's got to be one example. We have to try to
build the kind of person that we talk about and
calling for. And see what happens it's the great
examples that generates the possibilities of
awakening.
That's the key. That's the real key. If you seek
people who exemplify a level of vision and
integrity and love and justice, and you decide
"That's how I want to be," you get enough people
like that, you can have an awakening that's
broad. It's just like religion, right?
People see Muhammad, you see Jesus, you see Esther,
Amos, you say, "They got something to say." And
their are examples that I want to imitate. Or you
see Malcolm X, you see Martin King, you see Fannie Lou
Hamer, you see Edward Said, "I want to be like you,"
you see Rabbi Abraham Joshua Heschel, overflowing with
love and justice, like Baal Shem Tov, one
of the great figures in Judaism, overflowing with
love, you say, "Oh, I want to be like that." And if
enough people make that decision, then you got an
awakening and a movement. We saw with brother
Floyd Junior, right, we're not going to put up
with public lynchings of precious Black brothers
and we're going to hit the street. How come?
Because we're following the opposite of that. We
don't want to be like the police who did that. We
don't want to be like the institutional racism
that allowed for that. And who are the
counterexamples for that, well you got a whole
slew of possibilities and they come in all colors.
I want to be like Cesar Chavez. I want to be...I want to be, you see what I mean?
It goes on and on. I want to be like...
I want to be like Dorothy Day, all of these
people, all these household names. Why? Because
they exemplify love and justice. People need to
know who they are. You see. Now, you hear Stevie Wonder is
the greatest love warrior in music in his generation,
what's he thinking about doing right now? You all know
about that?
Well he thinking about moving to Ghana, forever. He
said he can't take the white supremacy in America
no more. He can't take his kids being disrespected.
Stevie Wonder, who wrote Love in Need to Love.
Stevie Wonder, who wrote some of the most
beautiful love songs of the 20th century. See, you
said, "Oh, Stevie. You feel the same thing I'm
feeling?" And of course, he's thinking of going to
Ghana like who? W.E.B. Du Bois. The great Du Bois didn't he
leave the country? He went to Ghana. Said, "I'm
never coming back. I can't take this disrespect."
That's W.E.B. Du Bois, first Ph.D. at Harvard University,
1895. He went to Ghana. Now, Stevie, thinking
about going to Ghana and you say to yourself, "My god,
we know it's been out of control. We've got to be
more fortified. We've got to be willing to fight
even more. You know, the Black brothers are feeling that
way, we know how so many Black sisters must be
feeling, because they got to deal with sexism and
patriarchy too. The same would be true with the
Black gays and lesbians and so forth, but all of
us can't go to Ghana. I mean, you know me, I know
I'm not going to Ghana, at all. My mama's in
Sacramento, I ain't going nowhere.
They're going to put me in the grave before they push me
out of the country, but I appreciate the freedom of folk who
want to leave. Can take it no more. Everybody got
the right to choose, to lift every voice, choose
for yourself. But if Stevie Wonder's thinking that
way and we know he got more cash then all of us. You
know what I mean?
"What's happening inside of his soul, all of that love
he still has for humanity?" but it begins with
Black people for Stevie Wonder. And you all know
Stevie's music, right?
It's unbelievable. There's nothing like it. It's
incredible. It's a whole caravan of love notes.
That's what his music is. [Pauline]: We should have played
that in the beginning. No, no, Coltrane is
Coltrane was a good choice.
Stevie Wonder's love supreme, Coltrane's love supreme, Nina Simone loves
supreme. Kendrick Lamar got some love supreme.
Oh, yes, Erykah Badu got some love. We got a lot of love
supreme candidates here. So you chose the right one.
You chose the right one. [Gerald]: Well, brother West, I just
want to thank you. It's such an honor to be speaking
with you. Your brilliance is just out of this
world. So we thank you from the Black Student
Union. [Dr. West]: Well, I salute each and every one of you, the
whole student union, all the student body, but
especially the three of you all who come together
and sister Trinity, she's somewhere, though, where's sister Trinity,
where's her lovely face? [Trinity]: I'm right here. [Dr. West]: Oh, yes, there she is,
indeed, indeed. Oh, and we got our dear brother
too. We got our dear brother Gebru here. Brother
Gebru, good to see him again. He's been a force
for good, for good while. [Dr. Amanuel Gebru]: Thank you, Dr. West.
Ka Ren: Yeah, I just wanted to say thank you myself to you
for your time and your message and everything that
you had to say. It really touched me and it really,
you know, allowed me to sit and think about some
of these things and some of these questions. Now,
we're going to move on to Dr. Gebru for closing
remarks. [Dr. Gebru]: Wow, just so thank you, thank you, thank
you so much, Dr. West, for blessing us with your
presence, your powerful message, and your wisdom
today. What a way to close out Black History Month.
But most importantly, I hope that we continue to
have more open and courageous conversations about
race, diversity, inclusion in order to dismantle
systemic racism and improve the lives of Black
students, students of color, and everyone in this
world. I just want to just say a few thank yous
and acknowledgements. I want to once again really
acknowledge our student leaders from the Moorpark
College BSU, Gerald, Pauline, Trinity, and Ka Ren, your
vision, your leadership, to bring Dr. West to our
district by working with our sister colleges.
Oxnard and Ventura speaks to your leadership and
ability to collaborate and put on such a dynamic
event like this. So thank you to our students and
just a few thank yous to the staff, faculty who were
involved in supporting our BSU students all year
round, especially for helping make this event by
supporting them and helping them execute a
phenomenal event. So thank you to our staff and
faculty as well. But a special thank you to two of
their advisors, Ms. Banea Sumpter, Professor Tammy
Coleman, who provide mentorship and leadership.
And thank you for for being the backbone of our
students and believing in them and believing in
their vision. And then last but not least, I
couldn't say enough thank you to our student
leaders and our moderators today. This was a
student led, student facilitated. You know, Gerald, Pauline,
Ka Ren, and Trinity, you're phenomenal leaders. And
for you to sit in the same space as Dr. West and
to be able to do this and engage in the
conversation speaks volumes to you who you are
and you as students and as leaders, and for
your advocacy for equity and social justice. But once
again, thank you, Dr. West. Thank you to the one
thousand plus attendees who are in attendance to
hear your words and be blessed by your presence.
And we appreciate you being with us today. And
hopefully we learned so much from today and that we
carry it on to our day to day moving forward. So
have a great day, everyone, and thank you once
again.
Dr. West: Thank you, my dear brother. We thank distinguished
Professor Coleman and all the others who
facilitate this and the young people, I'm leaving
with joy in my soul and a smile on my face. [Pauline]: Thank
you so much, Dr. West. [Tamarra Coleman]: Thank you Dr. West, it's an honor to
be here with you.