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Fight for human rights, West urges

  • The ultimate showman, P.T. Barnum,
proved to be the inspiration for Cynthia Wu’s current book
project. Photo: DOUGLAS LEVERE

    “In the age of Obama, it’s hard to talk about the legacy of Martin.”

    Cornel West
    Martin Luther King Jr. Commemorative Speaker
By CHARLOTTE HSU
Published: February 10, 2010

Cornel West—author, scholar, philosopher and civil rights activist—exhorted a UB audience last week to fight for human rights, delivering an impassioned speech in a baritone voice that moved with grace from a whisper to a boom.

His talk—in style, a cross between a lecture, sermon and spoken word—drew a sold-out crowd to the Center for the Arts Mainstage Theatre, North Campus, on Friday evening. Listeners stayed riveted as West, a professor at Princeton University, presented sometimes-controversial ideas about issues, including race relations in America. His visit, part of UB’s Distinguished Speakers Series, marked the university’s 34th Annual Martin Luther King Jr. Commemorative Event.

West, whose areas of expertise include African American studies and religion, encouraged attendees to think about King’s legacy, the battle to end discrimination. All human lives have value, West said, but too often, society advances the interests of “the strong” over those of “the weak.” He blasted the prison-industrial complex, disgraceful school systems and recession-type levels of unemployment that existed in poor areas even before Wall Street’s latest collapse.

West challenged his audience to continue King’s fight, pointing out that the assassinated civil rights leader was not “some isolated individual to put on a pedestal,” but one of many activists throughout history who have fought for justice and fair treatment for all people.

“He’s part of a vital tradition,” West said, “a vibrant tradition. He’s a wave in an ocean.”

Linking past with present, West said that in “the age of Obama, it’s hard to talk about the legacy of Martin.” President Obama’s election, which brought a black man into a White House built largely by slaves, was historic. But Obama’s victory also spawned often-simplistic analyses of race relations in the nation, said West, who shot down the idea that the event heralded a post-racial era. The scholar noted that a difference exists between symbol and substance.

The fact that white voters considered a black candidate, weighing his credentials and not his roots, wasn’t post-racial, West said. “That was less racist.”

West supported Obama’s run for office, but said the public now needs to question and put pressure on the president. From the vantage point of “the weak,” Obama “needs to be corrected,” West said. The professor noted that the new administration’s economic team includes thinkers and Wall Street insiders who have long promoted corporate interests over those of the working man.

In today’s world and universities, “the dominant paradigm is just to produce young people who are smart and brainy and well-adjusted to injustice,” West said. He called for an end to that apathy, for the elevation of the rights of all human beings: African Americans, gay men and lesbians, Israelis, Palestinians, people of all creeds.