Cornel West at the California African American Museum

I went to go see Cornel West last Friday! 

And apparently I need to focus my life on the de-niggerization of the niggerized people in my life. Classic! 

Despite all of the colorful C. West jargon though, I must say that I definitely enjoyed the presentation. Cornel West is such an exciting and funny speaker and somehow he managed to touch on everything from Barack Obama, to CNN's Black in America, to the Nas album. 

One thing that I thought was really cool was the way he used music as a theme throughout his entire lecture. He characterized it as a motivating force in everyone's life and loosely paralleled how the hip hop generation was lost it's way because artists who speak from their soul are few and far between. He quoted Otis Redding, Marvin Gaye, Isaac Hayes, etc. in almost every fourth sentence (kind of the same way I start talking in movie quotes). 

He even quoted Nas, which I thought was awesome. He also called "Lil Wayne...Weezy" a genius which I was very impressed by because I never really thought that older people could see the genius in his work through all the ignorance, as some of us can. He insightfully pointed out that although Wayne's work is smart, his gold teeth, body, and lyrical subject matter are indicative of a young man crying for help. 

I also loved just how personable West was, complimenting and welcoming people in the audience as if they were family or old acquaintances. He also encouraged that we uplift our youth by fostering dialogue between generations/cultures. He told the audience "Malcolm X was a thug before Elijah Muhammad loved him."

He was amazing. Read more here. 

I'm hearing the next speaker at the Urban Issues Breakfast Forum will be Susan Taylor of Essence magazine. I'll let you know the details when I get them!