President Barack Obama has already been criticized by Tavis Smiley over his personal address about the death of Trayvon Martin and George Zimmerman’s “not guilty” verdict, but now one of his other famous critics, Dr. Cornel West, is weighing in on the matter as well and is calling Obama a “global George Zimmerman.”
In a recent interview with Democracy Now, West challenged Obama’s remark’s that he “could have been Trayvon Martin” when he was younger.
“That’s beautiful, that’s an identification. The question is will that identification hide and conceal the fact there’s a criminal justice system in place that has nearly destroyed two generations of very precious, poor black and brown brothers? He hasn’t said a mumbling word until now,” said West. “Five years in office and can’t say a word about a new Jim Crow. At the same time I think we have to recognize that he has been able to hide and conceal that criminalizing of the black poor as what I call the re-n***erizing of the black professional class. You got these black leaders on the Obama Plantation, won’t say a criminal word about the master in the big house. Will only try to tame the field folk so that they’re not critical of the master in the big house.”
“Obama and [Attorney General Eric] Holder — will they come through at the federal level for Trayvon Martin? We hope so — [but] don’t hold your breath. There’s going to be many people who say, ‘We see this president is not serious about the criminalizing of poor people,’” he added.
“Well, the first thing, I think we have to acknowledge that President Obama has very little moral authority at this point, because we know anybody who tries to rationalize the killing of innocent peoples, a criminal—George Zimmerman is a criminal—but President Obama is a global George Zimmerman, because he tries to rationalize the killing of innocent children, 221 so far, in the name of self-defense, so that there’s actually parallels here.
Those are definitely strong claims against Obama. West isn’t the only one who has questioned the president. – nicholas robinson
