*Reading the latest issue of Journal-isms we came across this very interesting item about beefing on a higher level. It seems Cornel West and Melissa Harris Perry have some issues that go back a few years.
Cornel West, one of President Obama’s fiercest critics among black academicians, turns his fire on MSNBC’s newest host, Melissa Harris-Perry, in an apparent attempt to settle scores as he is interviewed for the Feb. 2 issue of Diverse: Issues in Higher Education.
“West says that the attacks by his former colleague, Melissa Harris-Perry, in the Nation and on cable news were strictly personal,” Jamal Eric Watson writes.
“. . . West was responsible for bringing her to Princeton from the University of Chicago after the two met at a conference. . . . She held a joint appointment between the Center for African American Studies and later turned on him and [Dr. Eddie] Gluade, the chairman of the department, calling them ‘hypocritical leftists.’ ‘I have a love for the sister, but she is a liar, and I hate lying,’ says West. . . . She’s become the momentary darling of the liberals, but I pray for her because she’s in over her head. She’s a fake and a fraud. I was so surprised how treacherous the sister was.’
“Harris-Perry declined to be interviewed for this story.”
“Melissa Harris-Perry” is to debut on MSNBC on Saturday, Feb. 18, airing Saturday and Sunday mornings from 10 a.m. to noon, Eastern time.
Harris-Perry told Journal-isms she would have no comment.
Read more inside info on the media at Journal-isms.
I’d like to know more about this story but, let it suffice to say that Cornell always brings folks to his inner circle that turn on him. Birds-of-a-feather.
SO GLAD Dr. West called out this fraud. I have NEVER been impressed with her and saw through her from day one. She is not an intellectual, just someone with a PhD–BIG difference. She is an overrated famewhore, just like Al Sharpton, who like Sharpton, has been rewarded for her loyalty to the administration with her own show on the administrations pseudo-network, MSNBC. I encourage all to read Dr. Boyce Wakins’ take on this:
http://newsone.com/nation/boycewatkins/cornel-west-calls-melissa-harris-perry-a-fraud-is-he-right/
And the full article referenced in EUR’s piece is here: http://mydigimag.rrd.com/publication/?i=98625
One more thing: the Center for African American Studies unanimously voted against her promotion to full professor because “her work was not scholarly enough.” I think tha speaks volumes.
I also think that as usual, most will defend her and demonize those who are not her fans at first. Then, like clockwork, they will tire of her excuses and apologies for this administration guised as intellectual conversation and realize that (once again) those of us “skeptics” were right. I can’t tell you how many times I’ve seen the ball before others and others are forced to eat so much freakin crow later on. I know this time will be no difference.
I digress now…
I don’t ne1 is demonizing people for not being her fan but Barack Obama? Different story.
I remember the article she wrote about West and thought it was the most ridiculous masquerades of intelligent thought that I’d witnessed in quite some time.
While I agree with her in that she has challenged the administration “occassionally” it’s also perfectly clear that she “knows her place.” She should’ve raked Lawrence O’Donnell over the coals for attacking Herman Cain’s “blackness” during the civil rights era. Instead, she soft-balled it and claimed she was “uncomfortable” seeing the exchange. Uncomfortable my ass, she wrote worse about Cornel West than she did in expressing her “discomfort” with O’Donnell.
That said, I will give her the benefit of the doubt just like I gave Al Sharpton.
I no longer watch Al’s show since I get more out of looking at watching my hair nap up when after it dries.
“I was so surprised how treacherous the sister was.”
For one she is not a ‘sister’.
As much as I’ve tried to like Melissa, I’ve always imagined she was very duplicitous. Then I saw her on youtube (hyping Obama, of course) making comments about Obama could have chosen a different identify instead of Black. It was almost like she was trying to guilt-trip folks into embracing him at all costs.
One doesn’t just get on TV based on ability…well, maybe that will get them on (in some cases, even inability will) but to stay, there are stipulations. This goes for all (skin colors) but you know it especially goes for Us. All I’m saying is no loyalty (to anyone) should be expected from the majority of these people who are “publicized”. It’s a wicked chess game, fa real. “The revolution will not be televised” was more than cliche.
Whatever happened to, if you have nothing nice to say about a person,say nothing.
IF as Corn(ball) says he has love for the sister,why then call her a liar and say she’s in over her head ,in your next breath?We as Blacks have too many STOOPID issues w/each other,but to (a lot of) them , we are all u know whats.The devil strives when there are distractions.
Boy(ce) Watkins had a blow up with Perry on Sharpton’s Show I am told,that made him look so bad,again I am told ,that he ran to you tube to defend himself,so he definitely has an axe to grind with her TGEN.
West goes on Bill Oreilly’s and Hannity’s propaganda productions and call’s them brother.They (Perry ,Boy(ce)and West) have me shaking my head at times with their rhetoric and THEIR I know everything stance,their titles have gone to their pea brains.Too much personal stuff playing out in public and they want to be seen as leaders.I am especially talking about West on this.He should try to be the bigger person.
I’m sorry..but apparently you didn’t read Perry’s article attacking West in which she attacked him for not attacking Tavis for his Wells Fargo affiliation, publishing R Kelly’s memoirs, his ego, and attacking Obama BECAUSE of his friendship w/Smiley.
She had absolutely nothing nice to say about West other than he was wrong and Obama was right.
Oh and of course, she compared herself to West…which imo there isn’t any.
http://www.thenation.com/blog/160725/cornel-west-v-barack-obama
I’m sorry but did you read where I more or less called all of them out..
It’s still kind of shocking seeing Cornel West going after Melissa Harris-Perry like that, but who can blame him. It was just as shocking seeing the way she went at him in defense of Obama. They both said stuff about each other which I think were petty and juvenile. It started with Jesse, but black people should never allow someone like Obama to come between us.
But I guess sometimes you got to do what you got to do.
Dr. Boyce:
“I was both impressed and shocked that West had been so strong in his position on Harris-Perry, and I was glad to see that even millionaires aren’t afraid to tell the truth.
Sometimes when diplomacy fails and your people are being attacked, it’s time to go to war. When Cornel West spoke up honestly about the challenges of poor, black and brown people, alarm bells went off in liberal elitist America. As a professor at an elite university, West was supposed to do what the other elites have done: consider the poor only as an after thought to planning your next vacation at Martha’s Vineyard. In the cute and contrived world of academia, poor people are only secondary theoretical constructs that you discuss during research symposiums; they aren’t real human beings that you should actually fight for in public.”
This could also summarize the Obama admin’s attitude towards black people. No, black is not synonymous with poor, but there are issues which affects us specifically as blacks, regardless of our economic status. We are all susceptible to employment and housing discrimination, along with being targeted by the criminal justice system. But in Obama’s world, we are only to be viewed as political assets, not human beings that you should actually fight for in public.
Dr. Boyce puts it best:
“But when you have 96% of the black vote, there is almost no incentive to do anything for black people, especially those who are poor or in prison. It’s much easier to convince black people to be quiet by using political goons to terrorize any voices of dissent.”
But at the end of the day, Melissa was the one who started it.
Dr. Boyce:
“Harris-Perry allowed herself to be used by the liberal establishment and their media channels to paint Professor West as irrelevant, petty and ignorant in his critiques. She never actually addressed the issues that Dr. West brought to the table. “
But as much as Harris-Perry is an apologist for the Obama admin, I find it difficult to harbor any real animosity towards her. Hopefully not because she’s a beautiful black intellectual
. I try to explain her actions as that of a black woman playing the white man’s game to get hers. And I ain’t mad at her at all for that. But penning an hit piece on West for the man went beyond the pale:
Cornel West v. Barack Obama
The Notion
As Dr. Boyce said:
“Supporting the Obama Administration is just fine. But avoiding the issues of racial inequality and poverty by simply discrediting anyone who brings the topics to the table is pathetically harmful to millions of black families that are affected by economic inequality, poor educational systems and mass incarceration.”
We are our own worst enemy. Not that it matters, but isn’t Cornel wife white?