Cornel West to Tufts: How Courageous Will You Be?
– Allison Goldsberry
Speaking before a packed Cohen Auditorium at Tufts University Wednesday night, renowned scholar, philosopher, and activist Dr. Cornel West closed his comments with a question: How courageous will you be?
Dr. West was referring to the guts it takes to follow life’s passion, to find a vocation and not just a profession, to find compassion to address suffering, and to speak out against injustice. That kind of spark is needed to keep America’s “democratic experiment” alive, a “Socratic energy” that follows the ethos “The unexamined life is not worth living.”
Dr. West was asked to come to Tufts to speak about the upcoming presidential election as part of the Tufts Faculty Progressive Caucus American Democracy in Crisis Series. Despite the political nature of the topic, Dr. West’s talk was about big ideas and critical thinking, not Democrats, Republicans, or simplistic storylines often found in mainstream “corporate” media that pit two sides against each other in an Us vs. Them vein.
One of the main themes of Dr. West’s speech was the need to be vigilant in a democracy because humans aren’t perfect. It’s each generation’s job to safeguard the democracy by fighting against injustice and to be “critical thinkers and not just narrow-minded consumers.” Democracy requires people to be participants and not just spectators, so it comes down to “what kind of human will you be” and what values will guide each individual. Democracy, West said, requires people to be courageous, visionary, self-critical, concerned with something “bigger than them,” and to believe that the “public interest makes a difference.”
“Every generation has kept America free by meeting fundamental challenges,” said West.
Dr. West also addressed the “moral abomination” of so many American children living in poverty. He also warned of America becoming an oligarchy, where the super-rich control the government. He took major black leaders to task, saying President Barack Obama “tilts toward the powerful” and asking where is Oprah Winfrey’s “political courage?”
“I know you’re not supposed to be an angry black man in the age of Obama but I’m angry. I’m angry when I see the unnecessary social misery,” said West.
Dr. West said there are many faces of poverty, not just “black and brown,” and it’s becoming more evident as even members of the middle class are sliding into poverty. He believes it’s time for the “younger generation to step forward” and he anticipates a “magnificent democratic flowering” among youth in the spring as poverty, economic injustice, and other issues become more prominent.
The topic of the night was serious, and the discussion robust, but West still managed to lighten up the mood with humor and personal anecdotes. He told Tufts students he met his first wife at the school’s Black House and he used to walk from Harvard to Tufts to see his future wife. It was Tufts that gave Dr. West his first job, in the philosophy department, something he said he would “never forget.”