I love a good performance. An admiration of a great performance does not take away from its meaning, weight, teaching, or importance.
Brother Cornel West brings it in this keynote address at the "Remaking America: From Poverty to Prosperity" conference.Truly he does. Dr. West's lecture is sharp, enlightened, multi-leveled, nuanced, and entertaining. Make no mistake, Cornel's speech is well-practiced; yet, it proceeds forward by marshaling the illusion of improvisation and inspired spontaneity. Trust, his speech is practiced, deftly so, and repeated and refined (over and over and over again).
For lunch, I am going to eat a Quizno's sandwich, drink a Coke, and study up on what Cornel West pulls off here. I love great emcees; I admire great workers in professional wrestling; one day, years in the future, I would like to be able to channel a small percentage of Cornel West's oratory skill.
Entertainment can equal education. In combination, they are "edutainment." It is okay to indulge. Intellectual sugar highs are fine...if you follow them up with a trip to the archives and some deep reading to get to the root of the argument.
In all, Brother Cornel is hot on the set here.
4 comments:
Well, Brother Cornel isn't really saying anything new---something most of us already know. What remains to be seen is what is to be done about the situation. People are always quick to point out the problems but rarely do they transform that into any kind of action. What has Brother Cornel or Tavis Smiley done to help America come from poverty to prosperity? People hold all kinds of conferences, summits, seminars, etc...But it still the same old same.
Chauncey, do you mean Uncle Ruckus?
There are some truths expressed here, however, the timing is rather suspicious. We needed a tour of this magnitude during the Bush years.
Their personal misgivings, notwithstanding,one is troubled by the consequence of power elites far more menacing than our current administration gaining legitimate power.
Oratory serves a purpose for lets face it; if he was 'erring' & 'uhming'..we wouldn't listen.
Given how articulate he is we need to really understand what he's saying. Hyperbole....yes...but that's his style.
A town crier or is he yelling FIRE with no exits but one! We need to truly discern what's going on here.
I think he bout said it all.
"What has Brother Cornel or Tavis Smiley done to help America come from poverty to prosperity?"
This, for one thing.
"We needed a tour of this magnitude during the Bush years."
And we need it even more now.
"We need to truly discern what's going on here."
We need to take the message. Sure West got style and pizzazz. That's secondary to the message.
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