Against Cornell West / For Barack Hussein Obama: MLK’s Bible, the Inauguration and the Left

By Jeffrey C. Goldfarb, January 23rd, 2013
President Barack Obama takes the oath of office from Supreme Court Chief Justice John G. Roberts Jr., right, in a public ceremony at the U.S. Capitol before thousands of people in Washington, D.C., Jan. 21, 2013. Roberts administered the oath in an official ceremony at the White House, Jan., 20, 2013 (cropped). © Sonya N. Hebert | whitehouse.gov

I wonder if Cornell West ever has second thoughts.

At a “Poverty in America” forum held at George Washington University on January 17th, West forcefully criticized Barack Obama for taking his oath of office at his second inauguration on Martin King Jr.’s bible. See below for a clip of West’s remarks.

West was sure and authoritative, as a self appointed spokesman for the oppressed, in the name of the oppressed, and their great leader, Martin Luther King Jr.:

“You don’t play with Martin Luther King, Jr. and you don’t play with his people. By his people, I mean people of good conscience, fundamentally good people committed to peace and truth and justice, especially the Black tradition that produced it.

All of the blood, sweat and tears that went into producing a Martin Luther King, Jr. generated a brother of such high decency and dignity that you don’t use his prophetic fire for a moment of presidential pageantry without understanding the challenge he represents to all of those in power regardless of what color they are.

The righteous indignation of a Martin Luther King, Jr. becomes a moment of political calculation. And that makes my blood boil. Why? Because Martin Luther King, Jr. died…he died…for the three crimes against humanity that he was wrestling with. Jim Crow, traumatizing, terrorizing, stigmatizing Black people. Lynching, not just ‘segregation’ as the press likes to talk about.

Second: Carpet bombing in Vietnam killing innocent people, especially innocent children, those are war crimes that Martin Luther King , Jr. was willing to die for. And thirdly, was poverty of all colors, he said it is a crime against humanity for the richest nation in the world to have so many of it’s precious children of all colors living in poverty and especially on the chocolate side of the nation, and . . .

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January 23rd, 2013 | Tags: , , , , , , ,

Barack Obama: Equality, Diversity and the American Transformation

By Jeffrey C. Goldfarb, January 21st, 2013
Supreme Court Chief Justice John Roberts administers the oath of office to President Barack Obama during the official swearing-in ceremony in the Blue Room of the White House on Inauguration Day, Sunday, Jan. 20, 2013. First Lady Michelle Obama, holding the Robinson family Bible, along with daughters Malia and Sasha, stand with the President. © Lawrence Jackson | WhiteHouse.gov

Notes anticipating the Inaugural Address:

By electing its first African American, bi-racial president, America redefined itself. Barack Obama’s singular achievement has been, and will be for the ages, his election, and his confirming re-election. The significance of this cannot be overestimated. It colors all aspects of Obama’s presidency, as it tends to be publicly ignored. Today, at Obama’s second inauguration, he will highlight his and our achievement, as he will take his oath of office on the bibles of Abraham Lincoln and Martin Luther King Jr.

Of course, Obama is not just a pretty dark face. He has a moderate left of center political program. He is a principled centrist. He is trying to transform the American center, moving it to the left, informing commonsense, changing the story we tell ourselves about ourselves, re-inventing American political culture. This will clearly be on view in today’s speech.

Obama has changed how America is viewed in the larger world, as he has slowly but surely shifted American foreign policy, ending two wars, developing a more multilateral approach, reforming the American military in a way that is more directed to the challenges of the 21st century. I should add: I am disappointed with some of this, particularly concerning drone warfare (more on this in a later piece). The President has finally established the principle of universal healthcare as a matter of American law, putting an end to a very unfortunate example of American exceptionalism. Another dark side of American life, the centrality of guns and gun violence in our daily lives, is now being forthrightly addressed by the President. His second term promises to address climate change in a way that has been foreclosed by the Republican opposition to this point. And he will almost certainly lead the country in . . .

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January 21st, 2013 | Tags: , , , , , , , , , , ,