Dr. Cornel West, noted author, activist and Professor at Union Theological Seminary, didn’t mince words in criticizing President Barack Obama’s reaction to the murder of Trayvon Martin and the acquittal of George Zimmerman, when he spoke with Amy Goodman of Democracy Now, during an interview on Monday.
West described Obama’s reaction as hypocritical and referred to him as “a Global George Zimmerman” who has killed innocent children through the military’s use of drone strikes.
“We know anybody who tries to rationalize the killing of innocent people is a criminal. George Zimmerman is a criminal. But, President Obama is a global George Zimmerman because he tries to rationalize the killing of innocent children, 221 so far, in the name of self-defense… Pakistan, Somalia, Yemen. So when he comes to talk about the killing of an innocent person, you say, well wait a minute, what kind of moral authority are you bringing?”
Reacting particularly to Obama’s statement that, “Trayvon Martin could have been me 35 years ago,” West went on to discuss the criminalization of low-income blacks – through the racial profiling inherent in police policies like Stop and Frisk. He also described the camouflaging of that criminalization through what he called the “re-niggerizing” of the black professional class.
“That’s beautiful, that’s an identification. The question is will that identification hide and conceal the fact there’s a criminal justice system in place that has nearly destroyed two generations of very precious, poor black and brown brothers, he hasn’t said a mumbling word until now. Five years in office and can’t say a word about a new Jim Crow.
And at the same time I think we have to recognize that he has been able to hide and conceal that criminalizing of the black poor as what I call the re-niggerizing of the black professional class. You got these black leaders on the Obama Plantation, won’t say a criminal word about the master in the big house. Will only try to tame the field folk so that they’re not critical of the master in the big house.”
