--- title: Cornel West Says Barack Obama Isn't Part Of A | TIME description: Cornel West Says Barack Obama Isn't Part Of A canonical: https://time.com/video/bJOHAZST/ og:title: Cornel West Says Barack Obama Isn't Part Of A og:description: Cornel West Says Barack Obama Isn't Part Of A og:url: https://time.com/video/bJOHAZST/ og:image: https://cdn.jwplayer.com/v2/media/bJOHAZST/poster.jpg?width=720 og:type: video.other twitter:card: summary_large_image twitter:title: Cornel West Says Barack Obama Isn't Part Of A twitter:description: Cornel West Says Barack Obama Isn't Part Of A twitter:image: https://cdn.jwplayer.com/v2/media/bJOHAZST/poster.jpg?width=720 --- # Cornel West Says Barack Obama Isn't Part Of A > Sponsored content. Supplied in partnership with TIME. 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They are at time.com/newsletters and are separate from a paid subscription. ## Video: Cornel West Says Barack Obama Isn't Part Of A [Watch (HLS stream): Cornel West Says Barack Obama Isn't Part Of A](https://cdn.jwplayer.com/manifests/bJOHAZST.m3u8) (2:47)  _Published 2014-10-01. Cornel West Says Barack Obama Isn't Part Of A_ --- Jul 27, 2023 5:19 PM UTC --- ## More From This Series [All Videos](https://time.com/video/) [College Search Database Isn't Quite What Obama Described](/video/8squG0l7/) ### College Search Database Isn't Quite What Obama Described [Hear Cornel West on Obama: ‘A Drone Presidency’](/video/aWv34iEW/) ### Hear Cornel West on Obama: ‘A Drone Presidency’ [Cornel West's Thoughts on Ella Baker](/video/1VhqliJy/) ### Cornel West's Thoughts on Ella Baker --- ## Transcript A prophet is a lover, not a leader. And that's very important, cuz a lot of people look at me and say oh, you're a leader of Black people. No, no! I'm not a leader of Black people, I'm a lover of Black people, I'm a lover of poor people. And so when I, when I look at Barak Obama in light of the Black prophetic tradition, I'm looking for. Unbelievable courage. Speaking the truth. Unbelievable compassion that focuses on the poor, those locked in the prison system. Focuses on children and so forth. It is not about rich versus poor, young versus old and it is certainly not about black versus white. When you're speaking to black young boys. In a very materialistic way, but you get to Wall Street and you speak in a subservient way. Then, criticism must be put forward just, to be true to the black prophetic tradition. We have witnessed the re- niggerization of the black professional class. Where they got power, assets, some prosperity. But they still scared. They still intimidated. They're afraid to speak the truth. They're concerned with their careers rather than their callings. Everything is for sale and everybody is for sale. And especially those persons who can be prophetic. Who could constitute voices that lead toward mobilizing people to constitute threats to the status quo. They're especially for sale and we live now in an age of the sell out. Because see I'm old school. We had Curtis Mayfield. We had Gil Scott- Heron and we had Nina Simone. The new school, I learned from and I work with. They need to be center stage. That's my critique with Sharpton and Jesse Jackson and the others, you see. They center stage and don't allow the new voices to come forward. Immortal Technique, Erica Batu, Brother Ali, India Ivory, Lupe Fiasco. But I'm old school enough to. To both love and believe in the capacity of young people. Even though I'm gonna be critical. I'm gonna be critical of everybody. But allow them that let them be center stage. So I'll be along side them. The challenge is in a highly market driven culture it's hard for those prophetic voices to surface. Either we all have the same inalienable rights. Or we don't. I think the vicious legacy of white supremacy cuts so deep in the past and present of America that we can't really talk about fully eliminating racism. Like I don't think we can ever talk about fully eliminating sexism, homophobia, anti- Jewish hatred, anti- Arab hatred. But we wanna push it back, as far as we can. And we can push it back. [ MUSIC ] ```json {"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"VideoObject","name":"Cornel West Says Barack Obama Isn't Part Of A ","description":"Cornel West Says Barack Obama Isn't Part Of A ","thumbnailUrl":"https://cdn.jwplayer.com/v2/media/bJOHAZST/poster.jpg?width=720","uploadDate":"2014-10-01T21:31:39.000Z","contentUrl":"https://cdn.jwplayer.com/manifests/bJOHAZST.m3u8","embedUrl":"https://time.com/video/bJOHAZST/","duration":"PT2M47S","potentialAction":{"@type":"SeekToAction","target":"https://time.com/video/bJOHAZST/?jw_start={seek_to_second_number}","startOffset-input":"required name=seek_to_second_number"}} ```