Cornel West and Carl Dix on Race and Politics in the Age of Obama

In Massachusetts, Cambridge police say they’re dropping the disorderly conduct charge against leading African-American scholar, Harvard professor Henry Louis Gates Junior. Gates was arrested in his home last week after he had to force his way in to overcome a jammed front door with the help of his driver. A neighbor had called police thinking Gates was trying to break in. When police asked Gates for identification he reportedly responded, “Why? Because I’m a black man in America?” He then handed them both his Harvard University identification and his Massachusetts driver’s license. He was then handcuffed, taken to the police station, and charged. Cambridge police have called the incident “regrettable and unfortunate” but Gates is demanding a full apology. Gates says he plans to use the incident to bring attention to racial profiling in the U.S. criminal justice system.

The arrest of so prominent a figure as the head of Harvard’s W.E.B. Du Bois Institute for African and American Studies has reignited debates about racism in the so-called “post-racial” era of Barack Obama’s presidency.

Well last week, while the NAACP’s 100th anniversary celebrations were taking place here in New York, I spoke to Princeton University professor Cornel West and Carl Dix of the Revolutionary Communist Party about the current state of Black America. They had just spoken together at a public event at Aaron Davis Hall in Harlem.

Cornel West is Professor of Religion and African American Studies at Princeton University and the author of numerous books on race, his forthcoming memoir is titled “Brother West: Living and Loving out Loud.” Carl Dix is a founding member of the Revolutionary Communist Party and was one of six GI’s in 1970 who refused orders to go to Vietnam and served two years in prison for his stand. In 1996, Dix co-founded the October 22nd Coalition to Stop Police Brutality.

Cornel West, Professor of Religion and African American Studies at Princeton University and the author of numerous books on race, his forthcoming memoir is titled “Brother West: Living and Loving out Loud.”

Carl Dix, founding member of the Revolutionary Communist Party and was one of six GI’s in 1970 who refused orders to go to Vietnam and served two years in prison for his stand. In 1996, Dix co-founded the October 22nd Coalition to Stop Police Brutality.

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