Dr West Speech from Chicago

Dr. West gave his annual (February) speech over the weekend from Chicago's St. Sabina Catholic Church. Of course I didn't agree with everything he had to say. But I generally agreed with his comments about Obama's economic team and their policies so far. Nothing really new here.... but he gave a decent speech as usual...although this was not as good as his three previous speeches. I did like his comments about the plight of Black communities being tied to the wider plight of the U.S. and his comments about the culture becoming even more shallow. He also called a few people out... which caught me a little off guard.

You can watch here, or listen.

BTW.... should there be a "Black Agenda"? And if so.... what exactly should that agenda be? If you watch the speech you will know what I am referring to.

I don't think there should necessarily be a "Black Agenda" per se. There is not much in terms of policy (nothing significant at least) that the government would be able to do just for Blacks or just in minority communities. The policy would have to be applied to classes of Americans (regardless of race) and would have to work for people across the board within those class groups...including for Blacks. That's the only realistic way to get things done from a policy perspective. I think we have to start moving away from race or raced based politics and move towards class based politics.

Blacks should turn to their local officials and members of Congress and ask why their communities are failing and to seek State/Federal relief. But as I have been saying for years, the CBC doesn't work in the best interests of its constituents. The CBC should be disbanded IMO.

Too many Blacks are (wrongly) holding on to this outdated myopic 1960's, 1970's, 1980's view of the relationship between race and politics.