A Conversation with Cornel West

Activist, educator and prominent public intellectual Cornel West delivered a soaring, often poetic, talk to an overflow crowd in Baker Hall in April. He also met earlier in the day with students.

On neopopulism

"We have to allow the government to come to the rescue of people in dire circumstances, just like [George W.] Bush and Obama came to the rescue of big business, because you can't talk about race and class without being honest about where the money is going. It's not as if they aren't in the rescue business ... It's who they're rescuing."

On the impact of neo-liberal policies on the most vulnerable

"Forty-seven percent of black children live in poverty in the richest nation in the world. That's morally insane. The neo-liberals' answer is to just turn their back and flatten the world, as Brother Thomas Friedman [New York Times columnist] would say. We don't want a flat earth. We want an earth that's preserved, not one that has all the life squeezed out of it for profit."

On integrity

"So we move from 1965 to 2016 and what do we see? Read the business papers. Scandal after scandal after scandal. Big money in politics, and we wonder why we end up with such mediocre candidates. I mean, it's embarrassing. But that's what commodification can do. That's what corruption can do. We saw it in the Roman Empire. And now we're seeing it in the American Empire."

On the role of education

"Education is itself an attempt to try to convince all of us to learn how to die. ... We all have certain prejudices that need to die. Could be against Jewish brothers and sisters, could be Arab Muslims or whatever. History deposits inside of us things that are worthy to be killed. And how do you do that? Critical reflection. How do you do that? Courageous engagement."