Cornel West on His Cancer and Health Care

By John Ballard

[The doctor] said, �If you were a white man, you have a chance, an 80 percent chance of living. A black man, a 20 percent.�

I said, �Race matters at that level? You�ve got to be kidding.�

"Prostate cancer, yes."

I said, �What about the research?� They don�t have too many research papers on this issue. And I said, �Well, wait a minute. Black brothers dying like this, and they don�t have major scholarly research to find out why the differential?�

You know, this is a major problem, and this is part of the issue of healthcare again. I mean, I�m dealing with the depression of this rejection of the public option. What a joke! You�re going to get a bill through with no substance and poor people left dangling, working people left dangling, and a bonanza for the companies again? If that doesn�t reinforce the levels of cynicism, when you and I give our lives trying to call into question to get people to become active, if that doesn�t reinforce cynicism, what does? When do elites finally have to give substantive concessions to poor people and working people? The history of the human drama, right? Trying to preserve the dignity and decency of poor and working people.

From Amy Goodman's interview with Cornel West.

One hour at Democracy Now.

Dr. West is a national treasure. When he speaks it reminds me of Woody Guthrie's singing.  The inflection and poetry of his voice add an important dimension to the content of what he says. He tells of the encounter with Larry Summers which West's to his subsequent move to Princeton.

AMY GOODMAN: The role of music in your life was part of perhaps why you ended up leaving Harvard, not as a student, but you were at Princeton, then you moved to Harvard to be with Skip Gates and a number of other professors in the African American Studies Department. You were also in Religion. Can you tell us what happened in your encounter�you write about it in your memoir�in your encounter with the president, Larry Summers, who plays a key role in the economic meltdown today?

CORNEL WEST: Oh, I know. No, indeed. But no, Brother Larry Summers, I think, he had a long history of arrogance and relative ignorance about poor people�s culture and working people�s culture and so forth. You know, he�s made remarks about putting pollution in Africa, because they suffer from overpopulation. Allegedly already deeply insensitive and so on.

When he arrived at Harvard, he met with every department other than Afro-American Studies. And so, Skip, my dear brother Skip Gates, knew something was wrong, so Skip Gates had already written a three-page single-spaced letter to Larry Summers when Larry Summers requested to meet with me, because he figured that Summers had something to say to me. And I said, �Why do you have to write that to the president?� I�d never met him before. But Neil Rudenstine, who was magnificent, who had been president, we had no problems with.

And as soon as I walked into the office, he starts using profanity about Harvey Mansfield. I said, �No, Harvey Mansfield is conservative, sometimes reactionary, but he�s my dear brother.� We had just had debates at Harvard. Twelve hundred people showed up. He was against affirmative action; I was for it. That was fine. Harvey Mansfield and I go off and have a drink after, because we have a respect, but deep, deep philosophical and ideological disagreement. He was using profanity, so I had to defend Harvey Mansfield.

AMY

GOODMAN: Wait, so you�re saying Lawrence Summers was using profanity?

CORNEL WEST: Larry Summers using profanity about, you know, �help me �F� so and so up.� No, I don�t function like that. Maybe he thought that just as a black man, I like to use profanity. I�m not a puritan. I don�t use it myself. I have partners who do. But I don�t like people who feel comfortable using it without my permission and not knowing me, you see what I mean? And then from there, it went on and on. �Well, you supported Bill Bradley, didn�t attend classes.� Not true. �Well, you�re deeply into hip-hop, and it�s an embarrassment.�

AMY GOODMAN: Wait, saying that you supported Bill Bradley as president, for presidential candidate?

CORNEL WEST: Exactly, which I had.

AMY GOODMAN: Yeah.

CORNEL WEST: He was my dear brother. But I didn�t miss a class, and anybody knows that, flying back and forth, Iowa, New Hampshire and so on, and ended here in New York for my dear brother Bill Bradley. But talking about the hip-hop, �it�s an embarrassment.� I said, �Embarrassment to who?�

AMY GOODMAN: Wait a second.

CORNEL WEST: What kind of hip-hop?

AMY GOODMAN: Larry Summers talking about you and your hip-hop CD?

CORNEL WEST: Right, exactly.

AMY GOODMAN: That it�s an embarrassment.

CORNEL WEST: Exactly. �I don�t want you to have anything to do with the hip-hop.� Well, no, I�m a free black man. I do what I want to do. I could do ballet, I could do Baroque. I can work with Chuck D, I can work with Talib Kweli. I can work with KRS-One or Rah Digga. You see what I mean? But I had to tell him that.

He has a Harvard, I have a Harvard. I was as much Harvard as he was. Harvard has a vicious anti-Jewish tradition, vicious anti-black, vicious anti-woman, and homophobic, too. I said, but Harvard also has critiques of anti-Semitism, critiques of white supremacy.

AMY GOODMAN: And, of course, Larry Summers was in the midst of a anti-woman debate that had to do with women�s role in math and science.

CORNEL WEST: Well, that came a little after. You see, that came right after my encounter, you see. So he continually got in trouble and got in trouble. And I say this not to really just bash the brother. But that kind of arrogance and ignorance is dangerous in public places.

That�s why I was so surprised when Barack Obama chose him to be the national economic adviser. I said, here�s somebody who has no history whatsoever of sensitivity to poor people or working people, who had been supporting deregulation for a long time as a Clintonite, in the Clinton administration. What is going on here? Or has Obama already become so comfortable with the establishment that you had to have an economist who was legitimate to the establishment in order for him to get his regime off the ground? OK. I mean, if that�s the kind of argument you have, then put it forward. But don�t tell me you�re a progressive, then, and generate that kind of support or major advisers speaking to you�speaking to you every day. Now, if he had Paul Krugman or Joseph Stiglitz or Sylvia Ann Hewitt, I�d say, �Hey, you got something going here. I think we�ve got a chance for some progressive policy that actually focuses on poor and working people.�

But I do forgive Larry Summers for this reason: that I think we all ought to have joy in life, and you can only have joy when you overcome arrogance and open to your own ignorance, because you end up being smart and brainy, but suffering from spiritual malnutrition, emptiness of soul, you see.

Ouch!
That's why I favor non-violent conflict resolution.
It's far more satisfying in the end.