Cornell West: Obama Doesn’t Deserve To Be Sworn In With MLK’s Bible
Dr. Cornell West has been among the most vocal critics of President Obama.
As Monday’s inauguration approached, Dr. West upped the ante, asserting that the President did not deserve to be sworn in with Dr. King’s bible.
Dr. West believes that that invoking Dr. King’s legacy during the inauguration was pure political calculation, since Dr. King would probably disagree with much of Obama’s foreign and domestic policy.
“The righteous indignation of a Martin Luther King, Jr. becomes a moment of political calculation. And that makes my blood boil. Why? Because Martin Luther King, Jr died…he died…for the three crimes against humanity that he was wrestling with. Jim Crow, traumatizing, terrorizing, stigmatizing Black people. Lynching, not just ‘segregation’ as the press likes to talk about.
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“Brother Martin Luther King, Jr., what you say about the New Jim Crow? What would say about the Prison Industrial Complex? What would you say about the invisibility of so many of our prisoners, so many of our incarcerated, especially when 62 percent of them are there for soft drugs and not one executive of a Wall Street bank gone to jail. Not one. Martin doesn’t like that. Not one wire-tapper, not one torturer under the Bush Administration — at all,” said West.
“Then what would he say about the drones on the precious brothers and sisters in Pakistan, and Somalia, and Yemen. Those are war crimes, just like war crimes in Vietnam, Martin Luther King, Jr., what would you say?”
Do you agree with Cornell West? Were you offended by the use of King’s bible?
Was the invoking of Dr. King’s legacy during the inauguration sincere, or for show?
Would Dr. King approve of Obama’s conduct as President?
Sound off below!