Adam Serwer writes about Cornel West, Tavis Smiley, and Barack Obama. “Is it realistic though, to expect any president to ‘represent the legacy of Dr. King’? Brown University economics professor Glenn Loury says it isn’t. ‘I find West’s formulation—”lackey,” “running dog,” “puppet”—laughable. Not that it’s inaccurate but that he should be surprised that the president is a cheerleader for American capitalism. How could it be otherwise?’ Yet identifying Obama as a beneficiary of the prophetic tradition, rather than its heir, is valuable. ‘The goal has to be to separate his person from Harriet Tubman and Sojourner Truth,’ Loury says. ‘That’s a precious resource, not only to the African American tradition but to the American political tradition. It can’t be put on the auction block of Obama’s political ambitions.’”
My name is Erik. I make music and web sites. I don't post much about those things here. Here are some things I post about:
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