the end of its nd year on the air and i thought for this show we've returned to our roots into our very very st guest harvard professor of the practice of public philosophy cornell west we've had so many brilliant and wonderful people on the show who've inspired us with their incredible talent activism creativity idealism courage and integrity cornell has remained as one of the show's most constant and important influence and it's been a difficult couple of years for many of us and certainly cornell has had his challenges to not least of which was a recent near brush with death in charlottesville where a peaceful protest he was participating in was threatened and engulfed by neo nazi white supremacist fascists they were saved by a group of fathers who courageously put their bodies on the line to protect him and the vastly outnumbered protester cornell's buoyancy is  a life of radical love is infectious to anyone who opens up his heart and mind to the joy and wonder of the universe we've tried to do this on this program as well cornell is fond of saying to people to stay strong the radical magination well and we hope you our audience will too hear now is brother cornel west on economic justice followed by his favorite jazz composer john coltrane playing a love supreme part for song imagine and bring about economic justice and radical love good morning everyone thank you very much for being here we welcome all of you who are present in this room everyone who's streaming well come across the country we have hundreds of people joining us every sunday to stream if you would like to know about our speakers on sunday morning you can fill out a form at the welcome table write ups that run up the steps and i will  personalized email every thursday telling you who's going to be here we're really really thrilled that you're here before i introduce our speaker i want to welcome with great affection and energy one of my best friends in life serene jones who is the president of union theological seminary a place in new york city which is a center that turns out literally prophets and  with grace and a plum and brilliance and she actually named my book those of you i don't know if you'll know what i published a book but  named it and i'm forever grateful to her this morning speaker is one of my best friends in life he's the class of one thousand nine hundred and forty three university professor at princeton university was he is known as one of america's most gifted provocative an important democratic election the author of contemporary classic race matters which is on sale today which changed the course of america dialogue on race and justice the new york turns bestseller democracy matters which is also on sale today and his memoir brother west living and loving out loud we also have on sale his book hope on a tight rope a very important book and also words and wisdom of cornell west also his and brother tab a smiley's book the rich and the rest of us a poverty manifesto we also have on sale i think a very important book serene's book trauma and grace theology in a ruptured world i learned so much about trauma theory and grace from her brother west is the author of seventeen other texts and the recipient of the american book award he holds more than twenty honorary degrees and is a professor at union theological seminary in new york need but as far as i'm concerned he's one of the brilliant most brilliant principle based hippest doods i've ever known please warmly welcome coast you know from sacramento california so if i have a chance i go see mom and my brothers sisters but all if i come to los angeles i've got to come dol st and any time ideas system visionary courageous leader  to hear she was talking about the ways in which we need counted narratives in countless stories given our market driven world because it seemed as if as you looked at the commercial the super bowl even idea by the bob dylan and others can be seduced w think that that blues jewish brother the from minnesota could be seduced but old my god we do in many ways live in the age of the sellout and i say sell out with because of course we have sellout potential in each and every one of us but the rule of big money rule to be accepted to be affirmed to be embraced by the mainstream and be streamlined  dominant way of being in the world is that he can istic narcissistic ego as dick mode we see promoted by corporate media with his bottom line of money money money it will taint clan reminds  cash rules everything around us but that doesn't have to rule os so i want to begin by invoking epigraph from the greatest black  justice turn the page to seventy five of that st volume of the ordeal of a man's divorce what do you have to say he said four questions i've been wrestling with all of my life and i have yet to provide an adequate answer and the rd is what does decency do in the face of insult does decency do in the face of insult and the last quer how does a virtue meet brute force in the best of my own tradition i always acknowledge every time i get the chance to stand but any time i get a chance to stand up and straighten up my back i let the world know i am who i am because somebody loved me somebody cared for me somebody attended to me somebody targeted me for fundamental things of integrity not cupid it takes honesty not mendacity of decency not indifference and of virtue and i think for example the parents of my dear brother jordan davis yesterday i didn't hear it but the driver told me this morning lifted my soul that same tradition of being concerned about truth  justice is what love looks like in public but tenderness is what love feels like in private when you listen to the words all that little precious young one just laugh  i listen to the words of jordan davis parents concerned about truth and justice but committed all so to what i call  you can't be a long distance runner for justice without having a militant tenderness a great rant on neighbor used to remind us any justice is only just assume degenerates into something less than justice justice is you know who the hell they're going through the long history of innocent lives being crushed by other folk and yet steel mustering the courage to american terrorist in birmingham in september of one thousand and sixty three dollars who what a great history it we have no monopoly on it but it's always important to lift it up that's the raw stuff of the quest for integrity honesty decency and virtue if anyone can see that when we are in our coffin they try to exemplify integrity and be a decent human smartness and dollars young people exposed to every moment of their lives the best thing that could ever be said about them is that of the smartest person in the room well i've never been impressed with just smartness against fleeting pledges and instant gratification is no accident that our music these days lacks tenderness it's body stimulation not so stirring st time in fifty years that a black artist did not have a pop number one hit on the billboard what's going all the recording industry video industry voice is not just entertaining i've always understood myself as a christian blues man and a life of mine a christian jazz man in the world of ideas because i want to be true to spiritual giants and love warriors trying to touch the hearts minds and souls and bodies of a people who have been taught to hate them sal who walk around a cross for you to bad things to go through if you go in any way but that militant tenderness and that subversive sweetness would allow you to say as brother martin did that before and i have i was in the dark as he was taken in with yo vision most significantly shakespeare puts it in this one song the tempest don't worry about my words i want you to be a master of the art of living don't get caught up with my art in terms of my sophisticated nuance of language i want you to master the art of living with your life to your touch folk so that you'll very way of being in the world becomes a blessing rather than  many mega churches we pray for blessing that next your life is to be a blessing and offering in so yes martyrdom can very well become a kind of witness but you are already engaged in witness bear and therefore in the end yes maybe you will give your life but that becomes a job that itself becomes a privilege because the life was given to you by god in a way it's not yours f where is makes you a non conformist in the world but not of it so you can stand and look at the powers that be and said i can't stand the wall street government i can't stand the drone government i can't stand the national security national surveillance government i can say it without hating the folks are doing it i but i don't like empires that subjugate other people i don't like capitalist regimes that have asymmetric relations at the workplace while working people are being treated as if dead just marginal utility and rather than children of might be incarcerated but chose spirit doesn't have to be in present just like a whole lot of folks walking the streets whose mind is a locked in the forms of mental psychological bondage and think they're free and just seduced by the corporate media trying to convince them to be market driven into teas rather dent living creatures made in the image of a mighty call that to me is what black history at it is is all about and you say it absolutely in fact i think it goes hand in hand you see for me the loss of any child of any color in a culture and civilization is not just wrong immoral and injust but in many ways it's a crime against humanity and therefore i try to have the same holy anger and righteous indignation and moral outrage at precious babies in somalia and yemen and afghanistan and pakistan lives that conceal crimes we ought to be upset deeply upset i got in trouble as you know when i call my dear brother president the global george said out of self defense he killed innocent person while the us government says out of self defense so far we've killed two hundred and twenty six innocent children i'm not convinced with either argument that it's self what i love about atheism is it just clears the deck whereas as a revolutionary christian a prophetic christian if it clears all the decks other than the god of love and justice so let tattles go yes  some of those love warriors for wow and you get the idea of how that story and that narrative that idea sister was talking about helps you continually unleash the love in such a dark world cycles of domination and exploitation how do we put a brake on it how we try to break that cycle at least for a moment ray allen appreciate the question of what you know of been wrestling with brother martin he's on my mind i just finished a book called the radical king re reading the norman thomas when you see that prize he said norman thomas and he's received this press american socialists democratic socialist anti war struggle against jewish hatred one of the few that signed the letter to roosevelt against the internment of our precious japanese brothers and sisters so martin's on my mind and therefore in a certain sense his prophetic imagination how can we conceive of a beloved community and allow it to intervene in space and time in such a way that we put poor and working people those friends were known called the wretched of the earth at the very center of our view of the world and it means of course it pits you over against powers that be given the war priorities that we have so we're talking about economic justice amount of trying to get some accountability for the greed does run amo oligarchs and plutocrats who are in the driver's seat right now look at the t p p looking to transpacific partnership reshaping the whole world in the image and interests of corporate elites fast tracked trying to right now be fast tracked through congress no serious blind you to the alliances that take place in sites in the empire if you just lost the battle didn't we with the the workers in tennessee see we got brother west i'd like to st thank you for your inspiration you've really been a major inspiration for me i nd that as a young person in today's society yes what would you do if you were in my shoes to fight for justice and equality and freesheet a question of whether it's always good to have a new school rather good old school rather talking to a lot lot well one do i take very seriously a shakespearean imperative to that own self be true and as night follows day that can be fast no one which means that only you can answer that question in the deepest sense i don't know you well enough i haven't see rode in on the dark precincts of your own so you know what i mean but i do know that you like i can try to be persons of integrity honesty decency and i have a calling not just a career the best way of not selling out the best way of ensuring that you're not thoroughly seduced by the carrots that oftentimes peddled in our faces is that you have the three fundamental elements of the great has szell defined as piety remembrance you remember lolo's who came before and especially those who want you to reverence you review or something more than just position wealth power status it's not to be echoed in socrates's of speech before the trial i want everybody to be concerned about the state of this so what kind of person you are as opposed to just your well status and position in athens socrates we appreciate that powerful remember and reverence but then resistance you have to have the courage to cut against the grain and it's very very difficult very difficult to date to be successful is in many ways to be an imitation a copy or to stand out in order to be more conformist so as not to real power of difference is the manipulation of difference not to be part of the same you see and i tell young for all the time you see when i invoke don in the synagogues because they can't wait to be accepted by the mainstream and to be rewarded but rewarded not with great joy and a sense of calling with big money and a sense of professional stature and wonderful thing about jesus and socrates and mohamed another that professional stature is really not in the name it's about the kingdom it's about the rose john rose in the yeah yeah but my question comes out of the democratic socialist tradition in the eclipse of the occupy movement what do you see as signs of a national social movement now that you know beyond just sort of trade unions and poverty bus tours and so on i mean the the best democratic resource democratic socialist resources always social movement see signs of hope for a new emerging social movements in our time yeah pre shared question a brother always a plus and say what i mean want to mean occupies it's taken a number of different forms it's still going on and right in different contexts but it doesn't have that high visibility in those sites that were coalescing a variety of different bodies and voices but i think the spirit of occupy has been one of the signs of hope in our time and a lot of people say well but it was strong and home and brooklyn and so forth you see and you've got a number of gay brothers and lesbian sisters and transgendered and bisexual folk of all colors straight in their backs and this is a moment for our precious gay brothers and lesbian sisters and we need to be behind that but we have to remind them it is not simply for them to become now excepted recognise and then well adjusted to other folks in just you see this is a holistic affair  so fragmented and most importantly we're still afraid we're intimidated and this is one of the great lessons of black history right there will never be truth telling in witness bearing unless you can look the fear in the face and stand up mark and darwin used to have one black man all the time leading the rally and what it just signed say the negro is not afraid that's very important and right now we've got a black professional class that in many ways is more afraid and intimidated then black working in paul hope they just have material toys or maybe a spouse a trophy spouse  that they think they have to protect for their appearance if they know we will know who you are what's in your soul if you for a just say that just say i think my career is going to be c because the only thing greater to true for me is love and i mess with my mom and my kids i'll tell a lie i will sell out but i will lie and i'll tell the world i told a lie because my courage to come into play because you know there's no such thing as social movements a people are afraid if they're intimidated if they're scared you get fair you have nerve and you know what what milk tolls spineless th afraid that's not the litmus test we're not talking about just your freedom fighter only if you take a bullet no that's not true but there are symbolic bullets coming everybody's way who try to tell the truth and bear witness to justice metaphor bullets coming your way that i'm trying to figure out the nexus of capital and economic justice and how you can leverage the market to create change i want to know your thoughts on so so impact investing to the bottom line  report you want to recount a punch you want to read a variety of the counter voices that accent that counter had him on that counter veiling forces against the mainstream obsessed with just oligarchic versions of it's not all or nothing it's a process using a few years ago when brother phil and the leaders was running for governor against arnold schwarzenegger how brothers are no one remains a mystery double bottom how do you do good and do well at the same time because you have structural constraints and that to me was a very important step one revolution of one fundamental transformation but at least provided a means by which we can get beyond simply the doing well financially and then it means depending on philanthropy in the philanthropies a beautiful thing too you're giving you the gates gives big money and others give big money we know know charities not just the philanthropies not justice it's not dealing with structural arrangement but when you have bottom line that's even a step beyond philanthropies because it's still built into the system now that it's not just profit is just so litmus tests for how you would injuries they have been in the vanguard in this regard i applaud them in terms of trying to somehow be socially responsible in their investment and very important trying to make sure you don't invest in institutions that are thoroughly associated with forms of domination  debate right now on the israeli occupation right that's a serious debate we need to have that debate but before we have a debate you say explicitly look we're not putting up with any anti jewish hatred we're not putting up with any anti palestinian hatred we're talking about a structure of domination called occupation and we want to make sure people come down on that issue in the same way you would if the palestinians were dominating jews in occupation would you have the same conclusion if israeli occupation of palestinians both peoples precious priceless this had a debate about whatever kind of boycott and we had the same debate in south africa we had the same debate in tibet and china kashmir india subsaharan morocco all of those forms of occupation in which a dominant power is subjugating a people and we certainly could have to debate about approaches indigenous peoples here in the united states