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Cornel Ronald West (born June 2, 1953 in Tulsa, Oklahoma) is a prominent African-American scholar and public intellectual. Formerly at Harvard University, West is currently a professor of Religion at Princeton. West says his intellectual contributions draw from such diverse traditions as the African American Baptist Church, Marxism, pragmatism, and transcendentalism.

Contents 1 Biography 2 Quarrel with Harvard President Lawrence Summers 3 Views on Race in America 4 Politics 5 The Matrix 6 Published works 7 References 8 External links

The grandson of a preacher, West marched as a young man in civil rights demonstrations and organized protests demanding black studies courses at his high school. West later wrote that, in his youth, he admired "the sincere black militancy of Malcolm X, the defiant rage of the Black Panther Party [...] and the livid black theology of James Cone".

After graduating from John F. Kennedy High School in Sacramento, California, where he served as president of his high-school class, he enrolled at Harvard University at age 17. He took classes from philosophers Robert Nozick and Stanley Cavell and graduated in three years, magna cum laude in Near Eastern languages and civilization in 1973. He was determined, as he informs us, to press the university and its intellectual traditions into the service of his political agendas and not the other way around: to have its educational agendas imposed on him. "Owing to my family, church, and the black social movements of the 1960s," he says, "I arrived at Harvard unashamed of my African, Christian, and militant de-colonized outlooks. More pointedly, I acknowledged and accented the empowerment of my black styles, mannerisms, and viewpoints, my Christian values of service, love, humility, and struggle, and my anti-colonial sense of self-determination for oppressed people and nations around the world."

He earned a Ph.D. in 1980 from Princeton, where he was influenced by Richard Rorty's pragmatism. He later published his dissertation (completed in 1980) as The Ethical Dimensions of Marxist Thought.

In his mid-twenties, he returned to Harvard as a Du Bois fellow before becoming an assistant professor at Union Theological Seminary in New York City. In 1985, he went to Yale Divinity School in what eventually became a joint appointment in American studies. While at Yale, he participated in campus protests for a clerical union and divestment from apartheid South Africa, one of which resulted in his being arrested and jailed. As punishment, the university administration cancelled his leave for Spring 1987, leading him to commute between Yale (where he was teaching two classes) and the University of Paris (where he was teaching three).

He then returned to Union and taught at Haverford College for one year before going to Princeton to become a professor of religion and director of the Program in African American Studies, which he revitalized in cooperation with such scholars as novelist Toni Morrison. He served as director of the program from 1988 to 1994.

He then accepted an appointment as professor of African-American studies at Harvard University, with a joint appointment at the Divinity School. West taught one of the university's most popular courses, an introductory class on African-American studies. In 1998 he was appointed the first Alphonse Fletcher University Professor, a position that placed him among a select two dozen professors at the university and freed him from departmental boundaries. West used this freedom to teach not only in African-American studies but in divinity, religion, and in philosophy (where he co-taught a course on American pragmatism with Hilary Putnam).

In 2001, after a public row with Harvard president Lawrence Summers, West returned to Princeton, where he has taught since.

The recipient of more than 20 honorary degrees and a National Book Award, he is a longtime member of the Democratic Socialists of America, for which he now serves as Honorary Chair. He is also a co-chair of the Tikkun Community and the Network of Spiritual Progressives. West is also much sought-after as a speaker, blurb-writer, and honorary chair.

He is, however, not without detractors. Critics, most notably The New Republic literary editor Leon Wieseltier, have charged him with opportunism, crass showmanship and lack of scholarly seriousness. Hoover Institute research fellow Peter Schweizer wrote in his book Do as I Say (Not as I Do): Profiles in Liberal Hypocrisy that West lives in a mostly white neighborhood and earns over $300,000 per year as a professor.

West remains a widely cited scholar in the popular press, in African-American studies and in studies of black theology, although his work as an academic philosopher has been almost completely ignored (with the exception of his early history of American pragmatism, The American Evasion of Philosophy).

In 2000, distinguished economist and former U.S. Treasury Secretary Lawrence Summers took over Harvard's presidency. In a private meeting with West, Summers allegedly rebuked West for giving too many high grades in his classes and neglecting his scholarship. Summers suggested that West produce a serious academic book befitting his exalted professorial position. (West had written several books, some of them widely cited, but his recent output consisted primarily of co-written and edited volumes.) According to some reports, Summers also objected to West's production of a CD, the critically panned Sketches of My Culture, and to his political campaigning. (West had stumped for presidential hopeful Bill Bradley in 2000 and later joined the "exploratory committee" for Al Sharpton's presidential run in 2004.) Finally, Summers suggested that since West held the rank of University Professor and thus reported directly to the President, he should meet with Summers regularly to discuss the progress of his academic production.

West reacted angrily to Summers's comments and told the media Summers had "attacked and insulted" him and shown him "disrespect," by telling West how to teach his classes and implying that his recent work was without merit simply because it was not strictly academic. The "disrespect" that West perceived was, in his view, part and parcel of the irreverence shown to blacks on a daily basis by whites nationwide.

Summers refused to comment on the specifics of their conversation, other than to express hope that West would remain at Harvard. Soon after, West was hospitalized for prostate cancer. West complained that Summers failed to send him get-well wishes until weeks after his surgery, whereas newly installed Princeton president Shirley Tilghman had contacted him frequently before and after his treatment. In 2002, West left Harvard University to return to Princeton. West lashed out at Summers in public interviews, calling him "the Ariel Sharon of higher education" on NPR's The Tavis Smiley Show.

He has branded the U.S. a "racist patriarchal" nation where "white supremacy" continues to define everyday life. "White America,' he writes, "has been historically weak-willed in ensuring racial justice and has continued to resist fully accepting the humanity of blacks." This has resulted, he claims, in the creation of many "degraded and oppressed people [who are] hungry for identity, meaning, and self-worth." Professor West attributes most of the black community's problems to "existential angst derive[d] from the lived experience of ontological wounds and emotional scars inflicted by white supremacist beliefs and images permeating U.S. society and culture." He explains that "the accumulated effect of the black wounds and scars suffered in a white-dominated society is a deep-seated anger, a boiling sense of rage, and a passionate pessimism regarding America's will to justice." "It goes without saying," he adds, "that a profound hatred of African people . . . sits at the center of American civilization."

One of the early catalysts of West's rise into the cultural stratosphere was his plea for racial harmony. As a Marxist black radical he was almost unique in saying that it was not appropriate for other black militants to hate all whites and Jews.

In West's view, the September 11, 2001 attacks gave white Americans a glimpse of what it means to be a black person in the United States - feeling "unsafe, unprotected, subject to random violence and hated for who they are." "Since 9/11," he said, "the whole nation has the blues, when before it was just black people."

West is unusually politically active for a scholar of his reputation. He describes himself as a "non-Marxist socialist" (partly due to Marx's opposition to religion) and serves as honorary chair of the Democratic Socialists of America, which he has described as "the first multiracial, socialist organization close enough to my politics that I could join".

He also described himself as a "radical democrat, suspicious of all forms of authority" on the Matrix-themed documentary The Burly Man Chronicles (Found in The Ultimate Matrix Collection).

West has made plain his opposition to the current war in Iraq. He asserts that the Bush Administration is peopled with "hawks" who "are not simply conservative elites and right-wing ideologues," but rather are "evangelical nihilists — drunk with power and driven by grand delusions of American domination of the world." "We are experiencing the sad gangsterization of America," he adds, "an unbridled grasp at power, wealth and status." Viewing capitalism as the root cause of these alleged American lusts, West warns, "Free-market fundamentalism trivializes the concern for public interest. It puts fear and insecurity in the hearts of anxiety-ridden workers. It also makes money-driven, poll-obsessed elected officials deferential to corporate goals of profit — often at the cost of the common good."

He has been involved with such projects as the Million Man March and Russell Simmons's Hip-Hop Summit, and worked with such controversial figures as Louis Farrakhan and Al Sharpton, whose 2004 presidential campaign West advised.

In 2000, West worked as a senior advisor to Democratic presidential candidate Bill Bradley. When Bradley lost in the primaries, West became a prominent endorser of Ralph Nader, even speaking at some Nader rallies. Some Greens had sought to draft West to run as a presidential candidate in 2004, but he refused, citing his participation in the Sharpton campaign.

West, along with other prominent Nader 2000 supporters, signed the "Vote to Stop Bush" statement urging progressive voters in swing states to vote for John Kerry, despite strong disagreements with many of Kerry's policies.

West also serves as co-chair of the Tikkun Community. He co-chaired the National Parenting Organization's Task Force on Parent Empowerment and participated in President Clinton's National Conversation on Race.

He has publicly endorsed In These Times magazine by calling it: "The most creative and challenging newsmagazine of the American left".

West is noted for his support of People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals in its Kentucky Fried Cruelty campaign, aimed at eliminating KFC's allegedly inhumane treatment of chickens. West is quoted on PETA flyers: "Although most people don't know chickens as well as they know cats and dogs, chickens are interesting individuals with personalities and interests every bit as developed as the dogs and cats with whom many of us share our lives."

West appears in both The Matrix Reloaded and The Matrix Revolutions. He plays one of the elders, Councilor West, who serves on the council of Zion. West's character advises that "comprehension is not a prerequisite for cooperation." In addition, West provides philosophical commentary on all three Matrix films in The Ultimate Matrix Collection along with New Age integral theorist Ken Wilber.

• Black Theology and Marxist Thought (1979)
• Prophesy Deliverance! An Afro-American Revolutionary Christianity (1982)
• Prophetic Fragments (1988)
• The American Evasion of Philosophy: A Genealogy of Pragmatism (1989)
• Breaking Bread: Insurgent Black Intellectual Life (with bell hooks, 1991)
• The Ethical Dimensions of Marxist Thought (1991)
• Beyond Eurocentrism and Multiculturalism (1993)
• Race Matters (1993)
• Keeping Faith: Philosophy and Race in America (1994)
• Jews and Blacks: A Dialogue on Race, Religion, and Culture in America (with rabbi Michael Lerner, 1995)
• Future of the Race (with Henry Louis Gates, Jr., 1996)
• The War Against Parents: What We Can Do For America's Beleaguered Moms and Dads (with Sylvia Ann Hewlett, 1998)
• The Future of American Progressivism (with Roberto Unger, 1998)
• The African-American Century: How Black Americans Have Shaped Our Century (with Henry Louis Gates, Jr., 2000)
• Cornel West: A Critical Reader (George Yancy, editor) (2001)
• Democracy Matters: Winning the Fight Against Imperialism (2004)
• Commentary on The Matrix, Matrix Reloaded and Matrix Revolutions; see The Ultimate Matrix Collection (with Ken Wilber, 2004).
• Post-Analytic Philosophy, edited with John Rajchman.

• "Cornel Ronald West". Contemporary Black Biography, Volume 33. Edited by Ashyia Henderson. Gale Group, 2002. Reproduced in Biography Resource Center. Farmington Hills, Mich.: The Gale Group. 2004. http://galenet.galegroup.com/servlet/BioRC

• "Cornel West y la política de conversión". Thomas Ward. Resistencia cultural: La nación en el ensayo de las Américas. Lima, Universidad Ricardo Palma, 2004, págs. 344-348.

• West on the Eighties
• Cornel West page at Pragmatism.org
• CNN Article - "Who is Cornel West?"
• Cornel West at the Internet Movie Database
• Martin & Malcolm: Implications of their Legacies for the Future
• Cornel West writes to Yum!Brands
• CSPAN 3 hour InDepth Interview, 1/1/02
• Cornel West speaks at the National Constitution Center, 9/12/05, 1 hr 45 min
• CSPAN Booknotes The Cornel West Reader, 2/22/00
• "Cornel West Gives Black Scholars a Bad Rap" By John McWhorter