Friday, August 21, 2015

'Black prophetic fire is the hypersensitivity to the suffering of others that generates a righteous indignation that results in the willingness to live and die for freedom...'

That's Cornel West, who's interviewed by George Yancy, at the New York Times, "Cornel West: The Fire of a New Generation":
G.Y.: One of your newest books is entitled “Black Prophetic Fire.” Define what you mean by “black prophetic fire.”

C.W.: Black prophetic fire is the hypersensitivity to the suffering of others that generates a righteous indignation that results in the willingness to live and die for freedom.

I think in many ways we have to begin with the younger generation, the generation of Ferguson, Baltimore, Staten Island and Oakland. There is not just a rekindling, but a re-invigoration taking place among the younger generation that enacts and enables prophetic fire. We’ve been in an ice age. If you go from the 1960s and 1970s — that’s my generation. But there was also an ice age called the neoliberal epoch, an ice age where it was no longer a beautiful thing to be on fire. It was a beautiful thing to have money. It was a beautiful thing to have status. It was a beautiful thing to have public reputation without a whole lot of commitment to social justice, whereas the younger generation is now catching the fire of the generation of the 1960s and 1970s.
Today's younger generation's being hoodwinked by New Left communists.

Keep reading.

West was on the "O'Reilly Factor" last night, and I'll update with the video if I see it. The dude is a trip. He calls himself a "revolutionary Christian" and refers to everyone as "brother this" or "sister that."

Weird.

BONUS: David Horowitz has a chapter on Cornel West and "Cultural Decline" in his 2012 book, Radicals: Portraits of a Destructive Passion.

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