Charlie Rose Interviews Dr. Cornel West & Tavis Smiley

Interview took place a few weeks ago.



They devote much of the segment to "The Covenent" - The so-called list of the top issues facing African Americans. I never bought into "The Covenent" because for the most part it ignores the issues of Personal responsibility, family, parenting, values, education, and the Cancerous & self-cannibalistic Black Popular Culture, particularly Hip Hop culture & the issue of Black on Black crime.

I have always felt that there was no point in trying to deal with the issues of the Covenent without first dealing with the intra-racial issues listed above. This is especially the case if there is going to be a comprehensive approach to dealing with the biggest issues impacting most Black Americans. The Covenant, as is, offers only a band-aid to the problems in so-called "Black America". Without dealing with Black on Black violence, the degredation of the image of Black people which is usually perpetrated by Black people, the lack of family values... & lack of even the concept of family itself, the lack of Fathers, the lack of value and emphasis on education (and a general plague of anti-intellectualism)... the other Covenant issues won't mean much. In fact, the Black elite establishment has been raising the Covenant issues for years and have made little progress on the whole, because the core issues that I mentioned have never been tackled head on. The "Black Establishment" continues to ignore the negative impact of degenerate Hip Hop music and culture on young Blacks. In fact, the establishment often embraces the poisonous values that are celebrated in the Rap culture. Can this go on for much longer?

I agree with Dr. West on several of his general ideas, but I also disagree with West, Tavis Smiley and others from the old traditional Civil Rights school of thought on many issues. Many of these figures believe that somehow the Government can come in with a program and money to fix the problems that I have mentioned. That is not the case. These are problems that cannot be fixed by the Government. I am sure that Tavis Smiley and Dr. West are not oblivious to this fact. But at the same time, they may be reluctant to air dirty laundry for fear of losing Black support. This situation leads to more pandering by Tavis Smiley & others, rather than any push towards real solutions... because the parties in so-called "Black America" cannot agree on what the problems are. Unfortunately Black folks (not all, but many) don't want to hear about the dirty laundry. And they certainly don't want to clean it. Instead, they would rather continue to ignore that these problems even exist. And in fact, the so-called "Black Community" has moved to new standards, or a new normal in terms of what is acceptable behavior, an acceptable lifestyle, acceptable parenting, etc. This has had devestating consequences, because it has had the effect of speeding up the Black Race to the bottom instead of slowing it down.

Tavis Smiley's "Covenant" approach puts the cart before the horse. I tend to support the side of Bill Cosby, Alvin Poussaint, John McWhorter, Juan Williams and others, regarding the need for so-called "Black America" to deal with important intra-racial issues.

This was still a great interview from Charlie Rose... they spoke about other issues as well. I don't agree with the Black litmus test nonsense either. I think Black folks have to get away from this kind of thinking.