A little something to think about...Doth We Protest Too Much?
Focusing on the negative can become destructive. Is there a little Cornel West in all of us?
It's all about this business of "contesting." And it's about all of us.
One thing we all know is that if Cornel West actually met Barack Obama alone in a room -- and we can be sure this will happen one day, and likely more than once -- he would embrace him and call him brother.
That's what he does with everybody, and I doubt he truly thinks Obama has a "fear of free black men." West was thinking of himself as a prophet, as so many of us encourage him to do. He was telling, thus, a truth that many are uncomfortable with. Except that this time, the truth wasn't true.
Why tell it, then? Because what West was doing was contesting for the sake of it, out of a sense that this is the noble thing for smart, engaged people to do.
You have to watch out for that stuff.
Contesting is good, solid post-Enlightenment behavior to a point. But West was displaying a tic that has spread too far and deep into our society, including into notions of black authenticity. Of course we contest when we think something is wrong. But must we contest just because it's fun?
But how likely is contesting that's that endless -- virtually subconscious -- to be focused enough to help anybody? We are dealing with contesting as commodity, contesting as congealed into attitude.
In 1965, James Forman was trying to set up a protest demonstration in Montgomery, Ala., against what had happened in Selma. James Bevel wasn't with it. "Demonstrate for what?" Bevel asked. He thought they should do a "demonstration" in, well, Selma, not just perform in Montgomery.
We should all ask ourselves that question sometimes. Contest, yes. But contest what? And why? Contesting also happens to just feel good for its own sake, and we waste too much energy when we forget that. Source