Welcome to DU!
The truly grassroots left-of-center political community where regular people, not algorithms, drive the discussions and set the standards.
Join the community:
Create a free account
Support DU (and get rid of ads!):
Become a Star Member
Latest Breaking News
Editorials & Other Articles
General Discussion
The DU Lounge
All Forums
Issue Forums
Culture Forums
Alliance Forums
Region Forums
Support Forums
Help & Search
2016 Postmortem
In reply to the discussion: What this says about Sanders speaks volumes [View all]sheshe2
(86,139 posts)59. Well Hell!
I am white and I am welcome there. I love their voice. Such an amazing group that sadly has been driven off this board.
You go on now, loving that man that called our President...
Calling Obama a global George Zimmerman? No. No.: Michael Eric Dyson sounds off on Cornel West, Obama & his critics
Author, activist, erstwhile rapper and former Barack Obama surrogate Cornel West became the presidents First Hater (at least from the left) shortly after inauguration, because of Obamas betrayal whether of progressive principles, or West personally, has never been clear. When West was criticized for his fierce Obama attacks by progressive colleagues and friends, he turned his enmity toward his critics, particularly African Americans he saw defending the president on MSNBC: most notably Rev. Al Sharpton, Melissa Harris-Perry and Michael Eric Dyson.
But while folks on the multiracial left have been puzzling over and lamenting Wests ad hominem haymakers at former friends for years now, when Dyson struck back this week in the New Republic, he came in for a lot of how could yous? even from some of Wests critics.
Wests peculiarly personal and vicious denunciations of Obama from the pages of Salon to the David Letterman Show are legendary. He famously called the president a black mascot of Wall Street oligarchs and a black puppet of corporate plutocrats. He claimed Obama is afraid of free black men and is more comfortable with upper-middle-class white brothers and Jewish brothers. Later he got worse, claiming Obamas drone policies made him a global George Zimmerman.
When African-American friends defended the president, he went in on them. West called MSNBCs Perry a liar and a fraud, claimed Sharpton was the bona fide house negro of the Obama plantation, and attacked the Michael Dysons and others whove really prostituted themselves intellectually in a very, very ugly and vicious way.
Its true that as Dysons TNR piece bemoans the nasty ad hominem nature of Wests attacks on Obama, as well as on him and his colleagues, he gave almost as good as he got, first praising West as the most exciting black scholar ever, then charting his intellectual decline. His greatest opponent isnt Obama, Sharpton, Harris-Perry, or me, the Georgetown scholars article concludes. It is the ghost of a self that spits at him from his own mirror.
Dyson is now being attacked for doing to West what West did to Obama: acting at least partly out of a sense of betrayal and hurt. One difference is, Dyson owns it, laying it bare in the piece. He admits his decision to break with West is fueled by pain and confusion, and having had enough in his case, enough personal insults, as well as insults to colleagues and friends and the president the author both admires, and pushes, in his own way, to be better. Our lost friendship is the collateral damage of his war on Obama, he writes. Dyson makes the case that the issue isnt how West has treated him, but how hes helped set back left-wing politics in the age of our first black president.
But while folks on the multiracial left have been puzzling over and lamenting Wests ad hominem haymakers at former friends for years now, when Dyson struck back this week in the New Republic, he came in for a lot of how could yous? even from some of Wests critics.
Wests peculiarly personal and vicious denunciations of Obama from the pages of Salon to the David Letterman Show are legendary. He famously called the president a black mascot of Wall Street oligarchs and a black puppet of corporate plutocrats. He claimed Obama is afraid of free black men and is more comfortable with upper-middle-class white brothers and Jewish brothers. Later he got worse, claiming Obamas drone policies made him a global George Zimmerman.
When African-American friends defended the president, he went in on them. West called MSNBCs Perry a liar and a fraud, claimed Sharpton was the bona fide house negro of the Obama plantation, and attacked the Michael Dysons and others whove really prostituted themselves intellectually in a very, very ugly and vicious way.
Its true that as Dysons TNR piece bemoans the nasty ad hominem nature of Wests attacks on Obama, as well as on him and his colleagues, he gave almost as good as he got, first praising West as the most exciting black scholar ever, then charting his intellectual decline. His greatest opponent isnt Obama, Sharpton, Harris-Perry, or me, the Georgetown scholars article concludes. It is the ghost of a self that spits at him from his own mirror.
Dyson is now being attacked for doing to West what West did to Obama: acting at least partly out of a sense of betrayal and hurt. One difference is, Dyson owns it, laying it bare in the piece. He admits his decision to break with West is fueled by pain and confusion, and having had enough in his case, enough personal insults, as well as insults to colleagues and friends and the president the author both admires, and pushes, in his own way, to be better. Our lost friendship is the collateral damage of his war on Obama, he writes. Dyson makes the case that the issue isnt how West has treated him, but how hes helped set back left-wing politics in the age of our first black president.
http://www.salon.com/2015/04/22/calling_obama_a_global_george_zimmerman_no_no_michael_eric_dyson_sounds_off_on_cornel_west_obama_his_critics/
Edit history
Please sign in to view edit histories.
147 replies
= new reply since forum marked as read
Highlight:
NoneDon't highlight anything
5 newestHighlight 5 most recent replies
RecommendedHighlight replies with 5 or more recommendations
Sanders saves Hillary's butt in the general, and her supporters are apoplectic with rage!
AgingAmerican
May 2016
#2
Equal rights for all! Except black women. They matter but let's not make a big thing about it.
Ed Suspicious
May 2016
#129
You used a professed lack of knowledge in the subject you started a thread on.
Gore1FL
May 2016
#137
I actually think it's a pretty funny choice. I mean, I fully expect West to complain long and loud
msanthrope
May 2016
#5
Hell, maybe he would have gotten tickets if he had contibuted to the campaign
CajunBlazer
May 2016
#12
Many/most? people who post in the AA forum, including many of the moderators
jack_krass
May 2016
#61
Yeah, your over the top, spittle flecked posts about the AA forum when most us don't know
Number23
May 2016
#139
The ONE AA poster that has been banned in the AA forum was every bit as hateful and disruptive
Number23
May 2016
#144
With his history of disparaging remarks about President I doubt his ability to make
Thinkingabout
May 2016
#10
Fox News chooses Bernie. way to go Bernie, get your followers wherever you can nt
msongs
May 2016
#16
They used to talk a little stupid shit about Belafonte too but I think maybe they
TheKentuckian
May 2016
#55
That means my day had some measure of success and my Marley's ghostly chain a link shorter.
TheKentuckian
May 2016
#60
He also picked Bill McKibben - Wow!! Plus a Muslim, an Arab, and a Native American.
jillan
May 2016
#32
Cornel West is a bad surrogate for Sanders and a horrible choice for platform committee
Gothmog
May 2016
#33
Suck ups usually despise those who speak truth to power. Not surprised at your poor attitude.
ThePhilosopher04
May 2016
#69
True progressives don't view progressives as the enemy. You can a lesson from that.
ThePhilosopher04
May 2016
#99
Bernie's intentional sliming of the Obama Coalition has been widely acknowledged for months and is
Number23
May 2016
#72
BS' fans can try to deflect from this forever but it's not going to work. There's no way
Cha
May 2016
#75
Perhaps you're just a lot more Conservative than Cornel West or Bernie Sanders. Cornel West has a
highprincipleswork
May 2016
#78
A lot of people with heartfelt passion, good intent, and a lifetime of support and action in the
highprincipleswork
May 2016
#123
He's disrespectful of the one person so admired by the AA community and for that reason
underthematrix
May 2016
#125
I personally would have liked another choice, because I feel the pain and the hatred due to his
highprincipleswork
May 2016
#128
I understand but you just don't do what he did. There's no compromising on this
underthematrix
May 2016
#130
Cornel West would be a great choice if the only alternative was an ax murderer
CajunBlazer
May 2016
#98
Funny stuff from Camp Weathervane who waited with bated breath for the "whitey tape" to surface.
AtomicKitten
May 2016
#120
Wow, Bernie's pants must be tied up in an awfully big wad to make that move.
kstewart33
May 2016
#138
Hillary is associated with DWS, who supports sending medical marijuana users to prison.
Warren DeMontague
May 2016
#140
Sanders thinks he knows it all. If anyone opposes him they are on his floppy disk list.
LiberalFighter
May 2016
#146