tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-11539837.post7978500875408090796..comments2024-01-19T04:29:08.081-06:00Comments on subrealism: the silent military coup that took over...,Unknownnoreply@blogger.comBlogger1125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-11539837.post-83253354020433212452013-09-18T04:43:52.023-05:002013-09-18T04:43:52.023-05:00http://www.truthdig.com/report/item/cornel_west_an...http://www.truthdig.com/report/item/cornel_west_and_the_fight_to_save_the_black_prophetic_tradition_20130909/<br /><br />There is an insidious and largely unseen effort by the White House to silence the handful of voices that remain true to the <a href="http://www.beliefnet.com/Faiths/Christianity/2008/05/Black-Liberation-Theology-And-Rev-Jeremiah-Wright.aspx?p=1#" rel="nofollow">black prophetic tradition</a>. This tradition, which stretches back to <a href="http://www.biography.com/people/sojourner-truth-9511284" rel="nofollow">Sojourner Truth</a> and <a href="http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/aia/part4/4p1539.html" rel="nofollow"> </a>Frederick Douglass, has consistently named and damned the cruelty of imperialism and white supremacy. It has done so with a clarity and moral force that have eluded most other critics of American capitalism. President Barack Obama first displayed his fear of this tradition when he <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2008/04/29/us/politics/29text-obama.html?pagewanted=all&_r=0" rel="nofollow">betrayed his pastor</a>, the Rev. Jeremiah Wright, abetting the brutal character assassination of one of the church’s most prophetic voices. And he has sustained this assault, largely through black surrogates such as the Rev. <a href="http://www.biography.com/people/al-sharpton-207640" rel="nofollow">Al Sharpton</a>, <a href="http://blackamericaweb.com/tom-joyner/" rel="nofollow">Tom Joyner</a> and <a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=F3K1ZQlWkUU" rel="nofollow">Steve Harvey</a>, in vicious attacks on <a href="http://www.cornelwest.com/" rel="nofollow">Cornel West</a>. <br /><br />“Jeremiah Wright was the canary in the mine,” West said when we met a few days ago in Princeton, N.J. “The black prophetic tradition has been emptied out. Its leaders have either been murdered or incarcerated. ... A lot of political prisoners who represent the black prophetic tradition [are] in jail. They have been in there for decades. Or we have leaders who have completely sold out. They have been co-opted. And these are the three major developments. With sold-out leaders you get a pacified followership or people who are scared.”<br /><br />“The black prophetic tradition has been the leaven in the American democratic loaf,” West said. “What has kept American democracy from going fascist or authoritarian or autocratic has been the legacy of Frederick Douglass, <a href="http://www.history.com/topics/harriet-tubman" rel="nofollow">Harriet Tubman</a>, Sojourner Truth, Martin King, <a href="http://www.ibiblio.org/sncc/hamer.html" rel="nofollow">Fannie Lou Hamer</a>. This is not because black people have a monopoly on truth, goodness or beauty. It is because the black freedom movement puts pressure on the American empire in the name of integrity, decency, honesty and virtue.”CNuhttp://subrealism.blogspot.com/noreply@blogger.com