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<h1 property="dc:title" datatype="" class="node-title">Cornel
West's 8 Most Eye-Opening Critiques of Barack Obama's Presidency</h1>
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<div class="field-item even">In his new book<big><big><em>
Black Prophetic Fire</em></big></big> , West blasts
the president for failing African Americans and the poor.</div>
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<div class="story-date"><em><span class="field field-name-field-date
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content="2014-10-06T08:52:00-07:00">October 6, 2014</span></span></span></span>
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<p>Very few progressive voices articulate more vitriol and
uncompromising disdain for President Barack Obama than Cornel
West. During Obama's six years in the White House, West has
critiqued every layer of the president's policies, from his use of
drones in the Middle East to what he feels is the president's cozy
relationship with Wall Street. </p>
<p>In 2011, <a
href="http://www.nytimes.com/2011/08/26/opinion/martin-luther-king-jr-would-want-a-revolution-not-a-memorial.html?_r=0">West
wrote in the <em>New York Times</em></a> that Obama has fallen
short of epitomizing Dr. Martin Luther King's dream. </p>
<blockquote>
<p>"The age of Obama has fallen tragically short of fulfilling
King’s prophetic legacy," he wrote. "Instead of articulating a
radical democratic vision and fighting for homeowners, workers
and poor people in the form of mortgage relief, jobs and
investment in education, infrastructure and housing, the
administration gave us bailouts for banks, record profits for
Wall Street and giant budget cuts on the backs of the
vulnerable." </p>
</blockquote>
<p>West's commentary is a breath of fresh air for some who feel
they'd be blacklisted in liberal circles for criticizing the
president, while others see his remarks as coming from a space of
personal bitterness. Regardless of where you stand on West's
opinions, his remarks are always worthy of further inspection. <a
href="http://www.salon.com/2014/10/05/cornel_west_the_state_of_black_america_in_the_age_of_obama_has_been_one_of_desperation_confusion_and_capitulation/">In
an excerpt from his new book</a> <big><big><em>Black Prophetic
Fire</em>,</big></big> West outlines why he believes Obama
has turned his back on the black philosophical traditions that put
him in the White House. Here are eight of the most insightful
quotes. </p>
<p><strong>1. African Americans Have Done Worse Under Obama</strong></p>
<p>"The great irony of our time is that in the age of Obama the
grand black prophetic tradition is weak and feeble. Obama’s black
face of the American empire has made it more difficult for black
courageous and radical voices to bring critique to bear on the
U.S. empire. On the empirical or lived level of black experience,
black people have suffered more in this age than in the recent
past. Empirical indices of infant mortality rates, mass
incarceration rates, mass unemployment and dramatic declines in
household wealth reveal this sad reality." </p>
<p><strong>2. Leadership In The African-American Community Has
Weakened </strong></p>
<p>"First, there is the shift of black leadership from the voices of
social movements to those of elected officials in the mainstream
political system. This shift produces voices that are rarely if
ever critical of this system. How could we expect the black
caretakers and gatekeepers of the system to be critical of it?" </p>
<p><strong>3. Upward Mobility Is The Worst In The Modern World</strong></p>
<p>"Second, this neoliberal shift produces a culture of raw ambition
and instant success that is seductive to most potential leaders
and intellectuals, thereby incorporating them into the neoliberal
regime. This culture of superficial spectacle and hyper-visible
celebrities highlights the legitimacy of an unjust system that
prides itself on upward mobility of the downtrodden. Yet, the
truth is that we live in a country that has the least upward
mobility of any other modern nation!" </p>
<p><strong>4. Leaders Who Challenge the Statue Quo Are Silenced</strong></p>
<p>"Third, the U.S. neoliberal regime contains a vicious repressive
apparatus that targets those strong and sacrificial leaders,
activists, and prophetic intellectuals who are easily discredited,
delegitimated, or even assassinated, including through character
assassination. Character assassination becomes systemic and
chronic, and it is preferable to literal assassination because
dead martyrs tend to command the attention of the sleepwalking
masses and thereby elevate the threat to the status quo." </p>
<p><strong>5. Mass Media Ignores Voices That Take on Issues Such as
Use of Drones and War Crimes</strong></p>
<p>"The central role of mass media, especially a corporate media
beholden to the U.S. neoliberal regime, is to keep public
discourse narrow and deodorized. By 'narrow' I mean confining the
conversation to conservative Republican and neoliberal Democrats
who shut out prophetic voices or radical visions. This fundamental
power to define the political terrain and categories attempts to
render prophetic voices invisible. The discourse is deodorized
because the issues that prophetic voices highlight, such as mass
incarceration, wealth inequality, and war crimes such as imperial
drones murdering innocent people, are ignored." </p>
<p><strong>6. Obama Doesn't Really Care About Protecting Working
People</strong></p>
<p>"The state of black America in the age of Obama has been one of
desperation, confusion, and capitulation. The desperation is
rooted in the escalating suffering on every front. The confusion
arises from a conflation of symbol and substance. The capitulation
rests on an obsessive need to protect the first black president
against all forms of criticism. Black desperation is part of a
broader desperation among poor and working people during the age
of Obama. The bailout of Wall Street by the Obama administration,
rather than the bailout of homeowners, hurt millions of working
people." </p>
<p><strong>7. First Lady Michelle Obama Legitimizes Obama's
"Symbolic Status"</strong></p>
<p>"Needless to say, the presence of his brilliant and charismatic
wife, Michelle—a descendent of enslaved and Jim-Crowed people,
unlike himself—even more deeply legitimizes his symbolic status, a
status that easily substitutes for substantial achievement." </p>
<p><strong>8. To Be Successful and Black, One Must Turn His Back on
the Poor</strong></p>
<p>"To be a highly successful black professional or politician is
too often to be well adjusted to injustice and well adapted to
indifference toward poor people, including black poor people. The
black prophetic tradition is fundamentally committed to the
priority of poor and working people, thus pitting it against the
neoliberal regime, capitalist system, and imperial policies of the
U.S. government." </p>
<p>Toward the end of the book, West writes how modern black
leadership has abandoned the traditions that have helped position
it and President Obama. "What does it profit a people for a
symbolic figure to gain presidential power if we turn our backs
from the suffering of poor and working people, and thereby lose
our souls?" he writes. "The black prophetic tradition has tried to
redeem the soul of our fragile democratic experiment. Is it
redeemable?" </p>
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