Read the full statement here:
Cornel West: You can’t talk about wealth and inequality, you can’t talk about education, you can’t talk about massive unemployment and under employment and you can’t talk about drones being dropped on people in other parts of the world without talking about White supremacy and its ways in which it operates. It doesn’t have to be overt. The President is right about that.
But too many Black people are niggerized. I would say the first black president has become the first niggerized Black President.
CNN’s Poppy Harlow: What do you mean by that?
Cornell West: A niggerized black person is a black person who is afraid and scared and intimidated when it comes to putting a spotlight on White supremacy and fighting against white supremacy. So when many of us said we have to fight against racism, what were we told? ‘No, he can’t deal with racism because he has other issues, political calculations. He’s the president of all America, not just Black America.’ We know he’s President of all America but White supremacy is American as cherry pie.
We’re talking about moral issues, spiritual issues, emotional issues. White supremacy has nothing to do with just skin pigmentation, it has to be what kind of person you want to be, what kind of nation we want to be. Democrats and Republicans play on both of those parties in terms of running away from the vicious legacy of white supremacy until it hits us hard. Thank God for Ferguson. Thank God for the young folk of all colors. Thank God for Staten Island and fighting there. Thank God in Baltimore, now the precious folk in Charleston.
