Dec 9, 2009
"Brother West" Reloaded
My review of Cornel West's autobiography last week provoked a lot of discussion, well beyond anything I ever expected. (And more, it seems, than anything I have written in almost five years of doing Intellectual Affairs.) In today's column, I consider some of this -- and address, among other things, the question of whether I have a secret desire to send West a box of fried chicken.
Some of West's earlier and more substantive work will be considered in the article promised in my talk on "C.L.R. James and African-American Liberation" during the summer.
I need to get back to work on it and not be distracted by chatter -- let alone by the sort of "literary streetfighting" that involves a seedy guy bludgeoning his own head with a thesaurus (to make the voices stop) and then bleeding all over me.
Some of West's earlier and more substantive work will be considered in the article promised in my talk on "C.L.R. James and African-American Liberation" during the summer.
I need to get back to work on it and not be distracted by chatter -- let alone by the sort of "literary streetfighting" that involves a seedy guy bludgeoning his own head with a thesaurus (to make the voices stop) and then bleeding all over me.