2008 Woodie Awards
OUT OF MY HEAD: Loving his way out...
Dismissing a speaker without all the facts is a serious mistake - especially if that speaker is Cornel West
Joe Killian
Issue date: 4/26/05 Section: Opinions
Funny story. The day Dr. Cornel West spoke at UNCG last week I wandered into a University office and found a group of staff members taking bets on how many people would show for the talk. The Cone Ballroom seats about 700 people - so based on the turnout for New York Times columnist Maureen Dowd last semester I said they'd probably have to turn people away. No way, someone said - unless I was willing to go round up a few hundred people and bring them with me.
A few hours later my girlfriend and I headed down to the Cone Ballroom - about half an hour before the man himself was supposed to arrive. There were already nearly 1000 people - and no seats anywhere. I saw some people I knew from UNC A&T and a small delegation from Guilford College. Clearly someone had underestimated West's drawing power.
West is a towering if controversial figure in many circles - Philosophy, Sociology, Religion, African American Studies. He's an academic firebrand who's gone head to head with Harvard's embattled president Lawrence Summers (a feud that lead West to leave Harvard for Princeton), publicly criticized both Democrats and Republicans for failing the middle class and black community and, at every turn, defied expectatons. He's the rare academic who's on the ground and in it constantly - his hands in the guts of the culture. He's made rap albums, participated in youth gang summits toward non-violence and even had a cameo in two of the Matrix films as "Councilor West," a futuristic elder.
But this week I heard a lot of conservative noise about West's speaking at the school. Not people who'd read any of West's work, mind you - just people who were put off by his liberal reputation and his following in the black community, had heard conservative radio hosts savaging him and had decided that was good enough for them.
"How do you think someone like Cornel West felt when he had to walk past that College Republican Ten Commandments monument in the EUC?" a conservative guy in my dorm asked me.
A few hours later my girlfriend and I headed down to the Cone Ballroom - about half an hour before the man himself was supposed to arrive. There were already nearly 1000 people - and no seats anywhere. I saw some people I knew from UNC A&T and a small delegation from Guilford College. Clearly someone had underestimated West's drawing power.
West is a towering if controversial figure in many circles - Philosophy, Sociology, Religion, African American Studies. He's an academic firebrand who's gone head to head with Harvard's embattled president Lawrence Summers (a feud that lead West to leave Harvard for Princeton), publicly criticized both Democrats and Republicans for failing the middle class and black community and, at every turn, defied expectatons. He's the rare academic who's on the ground and in it constantly - his hands in the guts of the culture. He's made rap albums, participated in youth gang summits toward non-violence and even had a cameo in two of the Matrix films as "Councilor West," a futuristic elder.
But this week I heard a lot of conservative noise about West's speaking at the school. Not people who'd read any of West's work, mind you - just people who were put off by his liberal reputation and his following in the black community, had heard conservative radio hosts savaging him and had decided that was good enough for them.
"How do you think someone like Cornel West felt when he had to walk past that College Republican Ten Commandments monument in the EUC?" a conservative guy in my dorm asked me.
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