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#ReallyfeStreetStarz #CornelWest #DrCornelWest

See, Trump has been somebody.

He's been a bona fide gangster since I met him over 40 something years ago.

But he's a wannabe gangster, you know, but it means he can say anything and do anything and get away with it.

See, that's what gangsters do.

Real lifestyle.

It ain't real life, just ain't real.

Real life street stars, you know what time it is.

Real life street stars.

We have a legendary, a legendary situation happening right now.

We have the man of the hour himself, Dr.

Cornel West.

Welcome, brother.

I'm blessed to be here.

And brother Jonathan, I wanna salute you and your crew.

You are a force for good here, not just in Dallas and the country, but the world.

Thank you so much.

I can't even go down your accolades, we won't have time for that.

So for that reason, I would like to just jump right into it.

You know, this conversation that we're about to have now is a conversation we would have had with you many times over decades ago.

And it probably been the same kind of conversation, but we're in a different scenario right now in which you are putting your bid in to be President of the United States.

And first and foremost, I salute you for taking the effort to say, let me see real justice, real change happening.

But we want to start with as far as your history to be, because we did watch an interview and they stated that you're kind of following, I don't want to say Donald Trump's method, but basically you had no situation where you were a state senator, where you were a judge.

So you move right to a point of being a philosopher, political activist, and you're like, right now I'm putting my bid in, and that's kind of the same thing Donald Trump did in himself in one.

So I don't want to negate that.

Hey, you need to have any type of status prior, right?

But I want to ask you for your party.

It's a third party.

And what is the name of the party?

For those that don't know, it started.

As a independent after I had left the People's in Green Party.

And then I decided to form my own party, justice for All Party, because in order to gain valid access, that's if you have a party, it could be 5,000 signatures needed.

If you run it by yourself independent, it's 50,000.

So it depends on which state.

You know, each state is different.

Now, we already own Alaska, Oregon, we got Utah, we got South Carolina, we got Colorado.

We will have another 15 in a matter of a month.

Or so.

So we are really on the move.

We got tremendous momentum.

But you are absolutely right about experience as an elected official.

Because you see, I have been running for justice for 55 years and I'm a Christian, so I'm running for Jesus too, but I'm running for justice.

And when you run for justice, you always looking at the least of these.

You're looking at the folk who have been pushed to the margins, the folk who have been pushed to the periphery, making sure that poor and working people are at the center of your vision.

And so in that sense, as my brother Clifton says, and he's here, a beautiful thing to be here in Dallas.

Right?

There you go.

This is a paradigm shift.

See, people are not used to seeing a politician who's not looking at the world through the lens of Wall street and stock market.

No, that's not me at all.

I look at the world through the lens of what Fly Stone call everyday people.

James Cleveland called ordinary people born working people as precious as they are.

So let me ask, what did you see that wasn't happening in prior presidencies that you said, I would like to go ahead and make some real change versus what you saw from Trump, Biden, Obama even, and going back, you know, decades before?

Yeah, because we have a political system that so oftentimes has really legalized bribery and normalized corruption.

That's why so many citizens feel so down and out and highly frustrated, because our politicians have been bought off by big money.

Our politicians are deferential to big industry, corporations and oligopolies and so forth.

When it comes to working people, small businesses, when it comes to working people trying to gain wages, 62% of our fellow citizens live paycheck to paycheck in the richest nation in the history of the world.

You think about that.

1% of the population owned 90% of the wealth.

Three individuals have wealth equivalent to 160 million Americans.

50%.

That's the level of grotesque inequality.

I'm running on a program.

I want to abolish poverty because I come out of legacy of Martin Luther King Jr.

Fannie Lou Hamer.

See, that's who I am.

I come out of Irene B.

West and Clifton west and Shiloh Baptist Church and a little influence from the Black Panther Party.

But I always held on to Jesus.

They were secular and atheistic.

Hey, I understand.

But I'm a Jesus loving, free black man.

Right?

So all we have in this campaign is nothing but a moment in a movement of the spillover of a tradition of a great black people.

And I ain't nothing but a little small wave in that ocean.

And this campaign is a wave in that ocean of a great people.

And yes, it spills over to Nigeria.

It spills over the Angola.

It feels over to the continent and African people.

In the end, we're just human.

But we always acknowledge what was poured into us.

The love, the courage, the integrity, the sense of determination poured into me by Irene and Cliff and Shiloh.

When you become president, what is the.

Biggest thing that's gonna change?

I think the biggest thing that's gonna change, my dear brother, is that we're gonna have massive disinvestment from military, massive investment, satisfying the basic needs of people.

So you won't see any poor people, you won't see any homeless or unhoused because there'll be a right to housing.

There'll be income that's available.

People will not be able to fall so low.

People can still thrive with small businesses and so forth.

But there'll be public oversight of the huge corporations that hemorrhage.

Almost like Ross Perot used to say, that sucking sound.

Yes.

You know, but he was talking about the budget.

I'm talking about big corporations sucking that profit out, sucking that extraction out.

You see, those resources will be available to satisfy health care, quality education, which will be free.

Housing, which is the right and safe communities.

Police will be under community oversight.

So they won't be doing things without any accountability.

So it'd be a very, very different world.

And it'd be a world that's so qualitatively in contrast to what we have now.

We got a world now society now the organized greed is just running out of control.

The institutionalized hatred is reinforced and the indifference toward the vulnerable is pervasive.

Be a very, very different world.

Do you have fear that you.

Not saying you, but in the situation as far as the office of presidency that there is congressional puppets that you have, you possibly could fall victim to being a congressional puppet where they have you in office and they will get you in office to control a narrative.

They will always try.

They will always try.

That has to do with your own spiritual quality and your character.

See, if you a free man or a free woman.

I've got a magnificent running mate.

As you probably.

Yes, Dr.

Melina Abdullah.

You see, she's free too.

But when you're free that the possibilities of being diluted are co opted are minimal.

Minimal.

It's like Duke Ellington playing with Lawrence Welk.

He ain't gonna play no Lawrence Welk music even though he's playing with Lawrence Welk because he's true to the tradition that produced him.

Luther Vandross ain't gonna sound like Pat Boone.

There you go.

Not at all.

We gonna touch on your musical background.

Cause your musical background is eclectic, you.

Know, from the blues and all that.

Let me ask you for your running mate.

She has a Muslim background.

That's right.

And what.

As far as.

You know, it's always in the key in picking your running mate as well, because this person also has the second notion to be president.

Right after you.

What was your decision making as far as picking Ms.

Marissa?

As far as to be your running mate?

Yeah.

With my beloved wife and I, Anna Hita.

When we called Sister Molina, my question was, it would be wonderful if you would join the ticket.

I said, but our highest standard is putting a smile on the face of Fannie Lou Hamer and Martin Luther King Jr.

From the grave.

That's the highest standard possible.

Should we wait?

Oh, yeah, they're coming.

We'll have them come in.

Oh, yeah, yeah.

Absolutely.

Absolutely.

L D.

So with that being said.

Should I say that again?

Yeah, let's say.

Just put that in Russia, please.

Absolutely.

No.

When I called my dear Sister Melina Abdullah, Dr.

Abdullah went under.

He told my wife, I told her, I said, we, as a twosome, must always attempt to put a smile on the face of Fannie Lou Hamer and Martin Luther King Jr.

You see why?

Because that's what moral, spiritual greatness is.

And politics has to have a moral and spiritual dimension to it.

It's not just Machiavellian calculation.

It's zeroing in on poor working people who have been left out so long.

And she trustworthy.

First thing I'm looking for, you're in a foxhole.

You got to have somebody you can trust.

But second, as Luther Vandross says, you gotta find somebody tried and true.

There you go.

Tried and true.

She'd been to jail so many times, swapped teams, going into her house.

Three times she'd been hit in the head, unconscious, and went to.

Went to the hospital and bounced back into what in the name of the people, loving the people.

That's tried and true.

That's the kind of person you want on the ticket.

There you go.

I like it.

Oh, yes.

I have to ask Obama, when he ran, he pushed the hope.

I guess you could say propaganda.

Trump, he has make America great again.

Do you have any type of slogan or any type of rhetoric that you're pushing for as far as that becomes a mantra for your campaign?

Truth, justice, and love.

Oh, there you go.

Truth, justice, and love.

And the condition of truth is to allow suffering to speak.

And justice is what love looks like in public.

So let's just get right into it.

With that happening right now as we speak, and we seen a man light himself on fire in front of the courthouse or while on day one, from your standpoint, being just, you know, on the political side of things, but just really on the social side of things, what message does this send to the nation with this trial going on?

And you see people going to those extremes in America where they would light themselves on fire, something that you would see in a third world country to protest or either to bring attention to what's happening right here.

We also had the brother set himself on fire.

Given the situation in Gaza with the genocide and the ethnic cleansing and the apartheid like conditions, we're reaching a point where people will go to extreme actions based on a profound sense of powerlessness, impotence, feeling, as if they don't make a difference, and they express themselves in that.

In that act of setting themselves on fire.

Now, I think that one of the things we have to come to terms with is what Malcolm X called chickens coming home to roost.

What did he mean by that?

He meant that you reap what you sow.

He meant that sooner or later, the very thing that you have been pushing aside and repressing will return with a tremendous power that will call into question the grounds upon which you stand.

And we're in a Malcolm X moment.

What does that mean?

It means that the veil that has been hiding so much poverty and pain and misery is being stripped off.

And people can see it.

And I know Kent Williams says the Year of the Truth.

Right?

Okay, well, that's.

He's a comic artist in his own fascinating way.

He said, the truth more and more will be revealed.

So it is about the country.

So it is about the country.

And so in Trump, in the case of Trump, see, Trump has been somebody.

He's been a bona fide gangster since I met him over 40 something years ago.

But he's a wannabe gangster, you know, but it means he can say anything and do anything and get away with it.

See, that's what gangsters do.

Just say anything, do anything, get away with it.

Gangsters come in all colors.

I got gangster in me, you know, I Gotta work on it.

Every day you wanna say something and get away with it.

You wanna do something, get away.

But now, life's not like that.

You got accountability.

Sooner or later, you gotta take responsibility.

Finally, now you see him in court.

Boy, he's a different kind of brother in court, isn't he?

Oh, man.

Oh, he's diminished.

Lord have mercy.

Humble and everything.

Hey, where's all of that swagger?

Come on, brother, I thought you had that Scarface model.

No, no, you've been humbled.

Now that's true for all of us.

All of us gotta be accountable.

Same is true with the trigger happy policemen.

Same is true.

Everybody who does something they ought not to do, sooner or later you gotta take accountability.

But that's also true for classes.

That's true for white supremacists.

It's true for male supremacists who mistreat the sisters and so forth.

Sooner or later, you're not gonna be the master of the universe.

Sooner or later, you're gonna be accountable.

That's what's happening right now with Trump.

But let me tell you this.

Before I stopped, there's a good chance, brother Jonathan, that I won't be running against Trump or Biden.

I felt that Trump could be on his way to jail.

Biden to do an LBJ moment and say, I no longer am running because the polls have completely undercut me.

Everywhere I go, they got the anti war protesters.

I can't get out a word.

My party is saying.

I'm too old.

I got brigamortis, I'm running out of gas.

Hey, we don't know.

But my calling is I'm going to be consistent and constant, trying to tell the truth and seek justice and be faithful unto death.

This is just not a campaign.

This is my life, this is my calling.

You know, and I saw that because, you know, some people question, well, is he dividing the vote?

Is he?

What's his purpose of running?

But I look at Trump's legal issues and he has more coming, possibly where this is not, a few more trials.

Federal Atlanta.

And people are saying, you know, as far as with Trump, of course, no president has ever had criminal charges brought up against him and let alone have to consider possibly going to jail, they have to see even how that looks with Biden, we're technically seeing, let's just say, to be honest, lapses in memory that is coming at some real unfortunate and unopportune times to where you're, you know, we never really question age and presidency.

You want to make sure everyone has their morals together.

And that's why I say, you know, from your.

Not from your knowledge in the system and just people knowing who you are.

And with Trump going on with Biden, your chances are even rising even more.

That's why it's more important to have this conversation.

That's exactly right.

And I deeply appreciate that, though, brother, because any historical moment teaches us that history is incomplete, unpredictable and unfinished.

And what we do makes a difference, and we got to do what we call to do.

You don't check the polls and check this tendency and that tendency.

You tell the truth and seek justice and throw down.

How old is it?

Too old to be president, would you say?

It depends on the quality of your mind and the dynamics of your heart.

You could be young and a gangster and a coward.

You can be older and still courageous.

But it differs from person to person, my dear brother.

It really does.

Now, when you reach the point where people begin to raise the question, does he really have both paddles in the water?

You gotta take that question seriously.

So I have to ask, you know, we see.

And again, you know, we have an urban platform, so I have to ask, do you feel like on the Caucasian side of things, that they'll give you a fair shake?

I've seen a couple of interviews to where they're digging into your financial past.

I don't want to say they could discredit you, but they're trying to, you know, again, media campaign narratives.

Do you feel like the Caucasian side of things, the Fox News and those, the way they report things, that they'll give you a fair shake leading up into the polls and the primaries and kind of getting past as far as, you know, getting to the next step.

Yeah, you know, I think that any time anybody tries to really tell the truth and seek justice on behalf of poor and working people, you gotta get ready for literal assassination, character assassination, being misunderstood, misconstrued, rebuked, scorned, lied on, pushed to the margins.

And at that point, that's a human thing.

You could have black folk doing that, you could have brown folk doing it, you could have white folk doing that, and so forth.

It's true that the mainstream in America does not like to talk about the organized greed in corporate America in the monopolies.

They don't like to talk about the 62 cent for every $1 in the US discretionary budget going to military expenditure.

You see?

So in that sense, anytime you raise issues that are a challenge and a threat to the status quo, you know, the status quo is very Multiracial up there, you got Sister Linda vetoing resolutions for our precious Palestinian brothers and sisters over and over and over again.

I mean, it's a sad spectacle.

So black faces in high places don't translate into truth or justice.

It's the kind of choices that people make, but you never preoccupied by how unfair other people are.

You know, I'm not surprised by evil or paralyzed by despair.

Brother, I'm a freedom fighter.

I'm on the battlefield.

That means I got to do what I'm called to do, no matter what the circumstances are, no matter what the context really is.

It just means that I'm willing to pay the consequences, though.

So I have to ask you, right now, they're looking at a possible TikTok ban, where they're, you know, they're looking to just, you know, take it away for Americans.

I gotta ask you, are you in favor of that and why or why not if, you know, you feel like TikTok should go away?

Well, I think I always look at the arguments and the evidence.

They want to eliminate TikTok because China has significant ownership there.

You see?

Now, you can imagine if China and other countries did that in terms of American business presence in their country, it'd be a whole different situation.

I'm a golden rule kind of brother.

You got to do unto others that you would have others to do unto you for the powerful.

The golden rule is he who has the goal.

Rules.

That's not me.

That's what makes me so very different than most politicians.

Most politicians are conformists and cowardly.

And all they want to do is win the next election to reproduce themselves as they gain more access to wealth and power.

That's not me at all.

I'm after the truth and justice, and that means then I gotta take the hits.

I gotta be willing to take the hits.

And I do it with a smile.

That's true.

I do it with a smile.

Because those who love me and sacrifice for me.

Look at this beautiful space you got right here in downtown Dallas.

Thank you.

Young black men.

Young black men.

Admit my brother Clifton.

We used to drive to see our grandmother, Nick Byas, who was a deep at Mount Zion Missionary Baptist Church in Orange, Texas.

Every summer we drive by Dallas.

You couldn't find black folk downtown Dallas.

I just left Roosevelt High School in Oak Cliff, and Brother Chief had to stand up there.

The Klan was putting all the pressure on because they didn't want black folk in the high school.

Now, hey, now we got this.

The only reason why you have this, the only Reason why you have Roosevelt High is what they loved us enough to sacrifice for us.

We got to do the same thing.

We embrace our Nigerian brothers and sisters.

Yes, indeed.

This is a human thing.

This is a black thing.

This is an African thing.

But at the same time, we also know we got to make sure we choose an integrity, honesty, decency, and courage.

Because you got some black cowards out there.

There you go.

Oh, you got some black folks who's afraid and intimidated, but when they raise their voices and straighten their backs up and fight for truth and justice, Shoot.

Makes me want to sing a song like Al Green.

There you go.

Love and happiness.

Well, we have real quick, we brought in two seventh graders from Scoggins Middle School, where they probably each want to ask a question to you.

Absolutely.

Let me see which one wants to ask first.

You want to say your name and then ask a question.

My name is Kennedy Simone Tobert.

And my question is, what changes would you like to make if you became president, my dear sister Kennedy, I want to make sure that you live in a world where, one, you can breathe fresh air.

Two, you can walk the streets safely.

Three, you don't have to see homeless people at all because people have a right to have a house.

You won't have people dying because they don't have access to healthcare.

I want you to be able to go to schools.

Some of these schools I go to, especially in the hood, they got more police.

They got nurses and counselors.

I want to go to a school where the teachers are just hugging you every day and telling you how brilliant, magnificent, and beautiful you are.

So you have unbelievable self confidence.

You see, that's the difference that I'm fighting for.

The people say, oh, that's naive.

That's a dream, or, you know, that ain't gonna happen.

Brother west, give up.

I'm glad the great grandmama and them didn't give up when they were enslaved to Jim Crow, the Jane Crow, they could have given up, too.

I'm gonna be just like that, fighting for you, fighting for my kids.

Fighting for all poor and working class kids especially.

And then still have some joy in my heart because it's a joyful thing to see you all doing so well.

Beautiful.

And introduce yourself.

My name is Justice Matuagu, and I.

Would like to know what inspired you to be president.

To run for president.

Ooh, I like that slip.

I like that slip.

My sister.

Yeah, Indeed.

Absolutely.

And your first name is?

Justice.

You know, my whole platform is truth, justice, and love.

Wow.

It's a blessing.

Kennedy and justice.

That's a beautiful, beautiful thing.

Now, what inspired me is that I've always just wanted to make the world so much better than it is.

So much better than it is.

And it begins by ensuring that young people, especially young black folk, believe in themselves, have great confidence in themselves to be able to do what they want to do regarding changing of the world.

So is that kind of real deep faith and commitment to making the world a better place?

There you go.

Thank y'all.

Thank you.

Thank you, kids.

Thank you.

Well, representing Scotland's middle school.

Thank you so much.

Yes.

That's beautiful.

That's a beautiful, beautiful moment in touch, man.

Bringing the young folk like that, I had to.

That's who you're doing it for.

That's exactly right.

But I can tell you this.

Most folk, we already tainted, most folk.

Who have podcasts and most folk who have interviews, they don't do what you just did, brother.

That's a special thing, man.

It's a special thing.

So let me ask you then, because Tennessee is looking to passing a law to where they're possibly allowing teachers to carry guns to public schools, private schools.

And tell us, how does that look for an America to where teachers can now carry firearms to school to.

Again, the goal is to protect children.

But how does that look?

It's just so sad when you see that military response to conflict becomes your primary response.

That's the sad thing.

You know, you see it in the wars.

You see it in the invasions and Gaza's genocide.

You see it in Ukraine.

You're probably going to see it more and more with China and Taiwan.

We've seen the conflicts in Latin America and Africa and so forth.

The United States is unique among the empires to view itself as innocent, even though it has a history of very chronic violence.

And so you got cop cities.

I'm just down in Atlanta.

You try to shut down cop cities because you're militarizing the police, they begin to look like an army.

You go into the schools, you got more policemen than nurses.

As I said, that's militarization.

You got young folk killing each other.

The only response to conflict, killing each other.

That's the history of America.

That's John Wayne.

That's the frontier with indigenous peoples.

We in Dallas right now, right?

Used to be Mexico.

Ulysses S.

Grant, who was one of the leaders in that war and also the major general in civil war, what did he say in his memoirs?

The Mexican War was the most immoral and illegal war I ever participated in.

How come you in it, Ulysses?

Well, they.

I was following orders.

Oh, okay, okay.

But it's land grab, it's power grab.

It's just like gentrification right now that's happening on the ground in the cities.

People come in with all this big money, buying all the properties up, pushing out poor people, pushing out working people, unconcerned of where they're going, for what?

Short term profit.

So the short term profit, when you privatize for profit, you often militarize to protect those who have property, you see.

And so, in fact, to see the militarization of American society, and in some ways, the militarization of the world is something that we have to fight.

I believe in demilitarized.

What are your thoughts on gun laws?

I think that we ought to have as tough gun laws as we can, my dear brother.

But all the laws in the world will not stop people from killing each other.

Canada has roughly the same population as California.

More Californians kill each other with knives than Canadians kill each other with anything.

You see, because if you have a culture where you go to military means first and all you got is knives rather than guns, you're still killing folk.

Canadian culture is very different.

It's got its problems, but the violence is much lower.

And we know other parts of the world are like that, right?

The violence is much lower.

So we need tight gun laws, but we've got to create conditions.

That's why.

So when you abolish poverty and people have a right to safety and education and arts and so forth, then that's going to reduce your crime.

It's going to reduce your crime because that energy no longer is channeled through that venue.

And again, it's just a matter of telling that truth.

Unfortunately, most American people, they don't even get exposed to what I'm talking about, y'all.

You know what I mean?

Don't even get exposed.

That's why this podcast is so, so important.

I'm glad you got myself and Mark and all the others.

You want to variety different views and voices.

That's very important.

And especially your precious audience, they got a variety of different views, and they're not to be viewed just as right wing or left wing.

And so.

But no, these are human beings in the United States trying to think through critically how they gonna live lives of decency and dignity.

And like our.

Like you speak on our audience, you know, we come from.

Technically, we look at things simply.

When you look at a stand, your Ground, stand your ground law.

Speaking on gun control and things of that nature.

What are your thoughts on the stand?

You'd ground y'all?

Does it protect murder?

Does it not saying incentivize, does it okay murder?

Because you're right.

Once you have laws like that to say you can defend yourself with deadly force if you feel deadly force is upon you or it's muddy water.

So, you know, we see the Trayvon Martin.

Where do you land with that?

With, you know, Florida's laws and Texas and, you know, few states have their, you know, it's muddy, it's money.

Right.

Well, one, I do believe that people and Pete Bowles have a right to self defense.

You know what I mean?

I mean, I think in my own case, somebody mess with my mama.

I'm a Christian, I'm not a pacifist.

I'm a throw down.

You know, I got to throw down.

But what does that mean?

That means that if I do that and I end up throwing down against somebody who doesn't deserve it, then I gotta pay the consequences.

See that, That's Trayvon.

You see, if you end up doing something and standing ground and you murdering, maiming somebody who's innocent, then you don't just walk away.

You got to pay a price.

That's for me, that's for Zimmerman, that's for anybody else.

So part of the stand your ground problem is that too often it's the precious young black folk who are being shot who are not given a priority, and it's the vanilla folk doing the shooting who are center stage.

I reject that.

I reject that.

You speak on Palestine and I believe you know, your stance, you stand with Palestine.

I stand with Palestinian brothers and sisters on the going genocide, actually.

Correct.

And I know some people, of course, could feel away.

But right now there's protests going on on university campuses across America that is, you know, standing on some of the same things and also on the other side, too.

So can you speak to a little bit about your stance?

And also when you see the political, the protests, what are your thoughts on the right to protest without physical force.

Coming up, without injurious harm and so forth?

No, I've been very much a part of those protests.

I think it's a beautiful thing.

It's a certain kind of moral and spiritual awakening for people to see genocide on their television and not just keep sipping their teeth.

They got to do something, hit the streets, make some signs, let the Palestinian brothers and sisters who are undergoing that level of unbelievable criminality and barbarity Let them know they're not alone in the world.

I say the same thing in the Belgian Congo.

Same thing in Sudan.

I would have said the same thing with Jews in Germany.

We got to stand in solidarity with people who are suffering and people who are undergoing that kind of massive assault.

And again, it's not tribal, you see, it's human.

It's human.

It could be Muslims in China that you have to be in solidarity with.

It could be brothers and sisters in Nigeria who are being attacked.

You have to be in solidarity with the folk who are being attacked and trying to generate forms of resistance, forms of resilience, you see.

And I think that anytime you have a moral and spiritual awakening, especially among young folk, cause a young folk between 18 and 22, there's a whole lot going on biologically, intellectually, socially.

For you to take time and say, not only gonna take a stand, go to jail.

That's why I stand with them.

So speaking of the 18 to 22 year olds, as a president there might be.

I want you to speak to the young man who's in school, who's looking to possibly go into the military with these things going on overseas and the UN's involvement to where the United States may look to say, we're part of the un, we may have to get involved.

Can you speak to the young man or young woman who is looking to join the military and what your presidency may look like as far as their future and how war is considered and things of that nature?

Well, as in the west administration, I would ensure that I would never send a young American citizen of any color in a war whose fundamental aim was simply that of either well to do corporate interest or having to do with lies.

Vietnam was predicated on a lie.

That's why the great Muhammad Ali didn't go, because he believed in the truth.

You see?

Iraq, lie, no weapons of mass destruction, Mexican war, a lie.

One can go on and on.

Truth is different than lies.

And so much of American history in this society has been predicated on lies.

So the truth cuts against it.

Now keep in mind now, the truth tellers in America are as American as the American liars.

See, Martin Luther King Jr.

Is as American as the Ku Klux Klan.

It's just the Klan is the gangster side of America and Brother Martin is the moral side.

But both of them come out of America.

It's like jazz in the blues.

Is jazz in blues American?

My God, yes.

Is bluegrass American?

My God, yes.

I lean toward the jazz and blues.

I ain't got nothing against bluegrass.

They ain't my thing, you know what I mean?

But it's American, and we had to always keep that in mind.

I like that segue, because that was my next question.

Was your history or your favoritism towards music is the blues and jazz side of things.

So for those that wanna get to know you personally, who's the artist that you grew up to?

What is some music that kind of just is therapeutic for you?

Which direction do you go when it comes to your musical contemporary?

Well, you gotta keep this in mind, my dear brother, that the black musical tradition is the greatest tradition in the modern world.

For artistic creativity, spiritual fortitude, moral courage, courage with style and a smile.

Now, my brother, I always call him the second cousin of Sam Cooke.

Cause Sam Cooke is charged.

Come on.

See, but Curtis Mayfield is a genius for all geniuses.

You see, Sly Stone is beyond category.

And John Coltrane, we don't have a language for.

We ain't even got the Sarah Vaughn, Carmen McCrae.

We ain't got the Billie Holiday Diner Washington.

I'm Phyllis High, man.

I could go on and on.

I'm here in Dallas.

Erykah Badu.

You just got to stop.

Ooh.

Oh, I gotta stop.

Pause.

You're right here with her, Lightning Hopkins.

Woo.

Pause.

What a tradition.

And what is it all about?

Telling the truth with a groove.

What is it all about?

Encouraging and inspiring a people who've been taught to hate themselves and know that they can create levels of beauty in a situation of such social ugliness.

You see, that's black music at its deepest level.

We ain't got the Bob Marley.

Oh, yeah.

Oh, Lord, he's spilling over.

You know, he spent three years in Wilmington, Delaware.

His first group was called Bob Marley and the Impressions.

And he was covering Curtis Mayfield's music.

They didn't know.

And then he had a genius lead.

Boom.

Here come reggae.

Holy Lord, have mercy.

Changed some lives Connected to Halle Selassie with the Rastafarian.

So we got it.

And we can go on and on and on.

Artists and our musicians are the vanguard of our movement.

They're not added on.

They're not ornamental or decorative.

They constitute who we are.

And black people without music would have gone crazy long time ago.

Some of us still almost going crazy with the music, but without the music.

Oh, Lord have mercy.

So let me ask you, they normally have on the inaugural speech some artist that comes and performs during inauguration.

I'm just curious, who does Cornel west bring to his inauguration.

Like what artists do you say I need them there for this?

Well, I can't bring Coltrane back from the dead, so I'd probably bring Bootsy Collins with me.

Okay.

Yeah, we gonna keep it funky.

Yeah.

So let me ask you, when it comes to foreign politics, when it comes to you having to deal with other leaders and other their vices, you have your Putin, you have your Zelenskys.

How important do you feel is open communication between nation leaders versus you're on your time, they're on their time and we'll meet in the middle if need be.

When you downplay military conflict, it only takes a button to blow up the whole globe.

You know that.

And with the ecological crisis going on, the possibility of escalating wars over water, basic kind of things become dangerous.

But you have to keep diplomatic processes at the center of your foreign policy.

Because see, I'm running to be head of the American empire.

In order to dismantle the empire, we don't need 800 military units around the world.

We don't need 130 special operations in countries around the world.

We don't need to dominate the world.

You see, I'm an anti imperialist.

What America needs to be is a dignified, decent nation among nations.

And in that way you begin to minimize, especially if you are the military might you set a tone for a whole species and say hey, let's downplay the militarizing and let's upplay the empowering of poor and working people.

Deep paradigm shift again you see fundamental.

One and can we get your take on unemployment?

As far as.

I don't.

I have to have somebody pull up where unemployment is.

I don't know if it's up or down.

But what are your thoughts as far as, you know, unemployment affecting the middle American?

We're coming off Covid as well, you know.

See, the problem of looking at unemployment in and of itself is that it's possible in this society for people to have two jobs and still live in poverty.

So it looks like, oh my God, they got all those jobs out there.

What kind of jobs are they?

That's the question.

If somebody got two jobs, you say oh you're doubly privilege but they still living in poverty because the wages are low.

So you got to keep track of the human beings beneath the statistics.

And because I believe in a safety net which means people cannot fall any lower.

I believe in a universal basic income, so people cannot fall any lower at all.

So they wouldn't have to Worry about being poor now I believe in the human right to a house and worry about being housed homeless.

The human right to healthcare so they wouldn't have to have a job in order to get quality healthcare.

All of those are efforts to look at a society from the vantage point of satisfying the basic needs of people, not just short term profit for the few at the top.

That's a radical, radical paradigm shift.

Martin Luther King called it a revolution as he defined it.

You say, brother Martin, what do you mean?

What is a revolution?

It is the sharing of power.

Poor people, if they had power, they wouldn't choose to be poor.

It's the sharing of resources.

They had access to resources, they wouldn't have to worry about the insecurity and anxiety.

And in the end it's the sharing of a certain kind of, of dignity.

Why do you think as a states to go, as a states that we're in such a place where they're removing middle class and it can only be rich or can only be poor like you think if you want to have a nation that sustains itself, you want people to feel like they had access to basic things, like you were talking about housing different resources.

Why are you, why do you think we're at a place where people feel like those basic needs aren't necessary?

Yeah, that's a wonderful question.

I mean, one is that I was in Pittsburgh just yesterday and Pittsburgh used to be the center of manufacturing production with steel.

And once you got these steel plants that went in various parts of the world for short term profit again looking for low wages to keep the profits high, it pulled the rug from under so many middle class.

Brothers and sisters of all colors pulled the rug from under.

So you ended up with a social structure that looks like a pyramid.

You had a few at the top, then you had mass middle class, then you had the poor.

1975 to now.

It's a pyramid, you see, where a few at the top, but big, big, big, big, big money and everybody else drops.

The middle class drops out.

And when the middle class begins to engage in downward mobility, it makes things fertile for Trump because he comes along and says scapegoat.

The most vulnerable charged, you know, blame those black folk, blame those immigrants, blame those so and so blame the others.

You don't confront the most powerful who got the power and the wealth.

No, no, you don't do that.

You blame the folk who themselves are on the margin and they all fighting for crumbs and those at the top breakdancing to the bank.

Well, speaking of those down there, I'm curious.

You know, Trump has his.

He's known for the stimulus package that of course, Corona and things brought.

So he's known for providing stimulus.

Biden is now, of course, fighting for student loan debt relief and going from there.

Do you have anything that you are looking to provide to those people that are in a struggle looking for some type of relief?

Do you have anything that you would like to do?

Oh, no.

I mean, the attempt to abolish poverty, abolish homelessness means there'd be massive resources transferred to poor and working people.

It would make Trump's stimulus check and Biden's stimulus check looked like Boy Scouts walking as opposed to Michael Jackson moon walking.

It's a qualitative difference.

Qualitative difference.

So I have to ask, when it comes to.

We always talk about this, I gotta get your take on it.

Yes, yes.

If there was reparations given to black people of, you know, of slave descent, you know, they could trace back to the.

Yes, your history was erased and you deserve reparations.

What reparations would you see to give?

Would you like to give or would you like to see be given if there something like that existed?

Well, no, I don't think you can have a campaign committed to truth and justice and love and not be in support of reparations.

Because what is the truth about America's economy?

It was based on stolen land and stolen labor.

And if it's stolen labor, then you created damage.

Well, what kind of repair connects with the damage?

Well, you'd never be able to repay all the African bones at the body of the ocean, of the Atlantic Ocean.

You'd never be able to pay those lynch, never be able to repay the black folk who died early because they didn't have healthcare.

But at least the descendants ought to get some semblance of justice.

Absolutely.

Would that be a payment?

Would it be land?

Would it be education, like maybe decreased education or free education?

How would you like to see it given?

If so?

Well, it would be a variety of voices.

That would be part of the process.

I mean, for me, explicitly, I have nothing against giving black folk money directly.

I'm not against that very much.

But keep in mind, you see, that's different than a citizen.

Every citizen, no matter what color they are, ought to have free education and so forth.

The reparations is beyond that because black people were sub citizens, we were anti citizens, we were non citizens.

That's what the Reparation is for.

But every citizen deserves a free the free access to healthcare and education and so on.

You see.

Do you worry about, or do you look at what AI technology is doing as far as when we speak on unemployment and we speak on job security and what AI could do in the future to make sure, like you mentioned in Pittsburgh and being at the steel mill to where the working class American will still have jobs four years from now, eight years from now, 30 years from now, and going into the near to the far future, well, no matter.

What AI did or didn't do, you got a universal basic income.

Folk can only fall so low anyway.

They'll never go back to poverty.

That's for Grandmamas.

That's for the youth.

You see.

Now, AI is dangerous because anytime you have private authorities and private enterprises whose fundamental ending is short term profit, you're going to have a problem because the AI will be used and manipulated just to make money and have nothing to do with satisfying social needs.

If you have civic, public oversight over AI, because AI is going to be here, the question is, what is it going to be used for?

That's the question.

You see, if we got to have strong civic and public oversight over it, not short term profit, I agree.

Now you're in Dallas, Texas, in which of course, we're having what people consider a migrant crisis.

You know, there's a border, of course, El Paso, you know, looking into, over to Juarez.

And, you know, we have a wall that, you know, was built and we are now seeing people patrol those walls where American citizens are being asked to pick up arms and help cover the border.

What are your thoughts on the migrant crisis?

We see, when you see people being brought in from boats and being sent all over America and you go to New York, you see them laying outside, no residencies, but once they're here, they're spread out.

You know, Biden has his thoughts, Trump had his thoughts.

Where do you land?

Yeah, well, one thing is we gotta treat people humanely.

See, I don't believe in demonizing people, especially poor people who are trying to escape poverty and violence.

And some of that poverty and violence is a result of US foreign policy.

It's a result of supporting dictators who impose very ugly and vicious conditions on the people themselves.

But we gotta keep in mind America has a lot of borders.

See, America has an open border for Canada.

Just go back and forth all you want.

How come the Canadians not trying to break their neck to get here?

Because they got different conditions.

You see, the idea that everybody wants to Come to America.

You know, that's too narrow.

America ain't got all the good goodies in the world.

Some people trying to break their neck to get to Nigeria, to try to get to Ghana, some trying to get to Kenya and other places.

You see, America's got all kind of open borders.

It's just when it comes to the Latin American border.

Now, I was conceived in El Paso.

I was born in Tulsa.

So I'm a kind of a Texan in a certain sense.

Exactly.

Right on the border right now.

When I was conceived, America had open borders.

You only had to fight over the border.

In the last few decades, I grew up in California.

We go down Tijuana all the time.

Right, Cliff, Back and forth.

Mexicans come back and forth, too.

My dear brother, himself married to a magnificent Chicano sister, Letitia, High quality, made great contribution to America.

Her father made great contribution to America.

You see, it's only when we reach a concentrated point in which the violence and the poverty become so overwhelming in certain countries in Central America and other places, and then the pressures are brought to bear for them to try to get in.

And persons who.

You always had businesses who wanted Mexicans to come in because they had cheap labor and they were not unionized.

The challenge is to make sure that you downplay the conflict between the poor people who are already here, that have trouble gaining access to resources, and the poor people who are trying to get in.

And oftentimes people try to pit them against each other.

And see, I believe in the solidarity and unity of poor people.

I don't believe in poor people going at each other's throats, fighting over crumbs.

So what would I do?

I would demilitarize the border.

I would abolish ICE because they have proven to be too militaristic and authoritarian and not treating people right.

Then I would have a diplomatic meeting with the head of the Mexican government and the head of the other Central American governments and say, we've got to come up with a regional plan to make sure that we speak to the needs of these precious poor people who are running for their lives.

And of course, that spills over even beyond Latin America.

We got more and more people coming from Africa and other places as well.

Now, you are seasoned and with a lot of wisdom that you have.

Some might say you're too old for this position.

We have the.

You hear the Sleepy Joes and the goings on.

Do you think that you possess the physical as well as the mental capability to run the free world?

Well, I mean, one Is that I would not necessarily define America as the center of the free world.

Amen.

There's too many unfree people.

I've taught in prison for over 50 years.

The mass incarceration regime is a crime against humanity.

So it's hard for me to call that freedom.

And they call it a free world and free country.

Right when my grandfather was being chased by the clan.

So that language itself, we're fighting for freedom, but it's not an achievement or accomplishment.

That's important thing.

It's a process and a pursuit.

But your question about whether I'm old enough or not, I mean, people are right to raise all kind of questions about whether people's acuity and vitality and vibrancy is in place.

And time is a taker as well as a giver.

So as you get older, of course you're going to slow down a bit.

There's no doubt about that.

But I feel at the moment that I'm actually at my peak.

I think I'm in my right mind better now than I was 25 years ago.

But that's just my humble opinion.

But if I reach the point moving toward Biden and it looks like I don't have both paddles in the water adequately, I would hope somebody lovingly beginning with my brother would say, corn, you're slowing down.

Rigor mortis setting in.

Got to tell the truth about you.

Love you much.

And I'd say, I always listen to Cliff.

Now I always listen to my brother.

First thing I say is, can we have a prayer?

Amen.

In the name of Jesus, send us a sign that you're getting too old, that you sent me on this journey, you gave me this calling, and I want to know you think it's time for me, call it quit.

So I'm always open.

I don't want to be self righteous about this thing.

You never know.

And see, as a black man in America, the very fact that I'm in my right mind at 70 years old is a miracle.

Amazing.

Gotta clap that up.

It's a miracle.

It really is.

Oh, all the stuff we got coming at us, we got to deal with all the time.

Oh, Lord have mercy.

Nothing but Jesus, the Holy Ghost and mama's prayers keeping me going.

Season in wisdom.

Dr.

West, let me ask you, coming from Harvard and seeing how high education is nowadays for those people who are now scared to go to college now because of the high cost and the tuition and just what it costs to pay it back, where people are looking at other avenues to become entrepreneurs you have things like this YouTube, you have TikTok.

You have other avenues to where some people aren't leaning towards college per se, but maybe more technical schools and getting right to where they need to be career wise.

From your background, what would you say to, you know, the education of seeking further education for young Americans?

I mean, one thing is that I do believe in free education.

People ought to be able to and not have to worry about financial burden.

So that Biden might talk about, well, I'm going to excuse the interest, but not the principal.

Oh, please, please, please.

Again, so weak.

We need free education across the board right now.

The vast majority of Americans never go to college.

42% of Americans set foot in a college.

Some of my greatest heroes, like James Baldwin, he never went to college, but a college went through him.

He educated himself, wisdom and so forth.

Most of our great musicians.

Miles Davis dropped out of Juilliard because he learned more under a genius named Charlie Parker.

Louis Armstone didn't need to go to college.

He was a walking musical university.

So that I don't believe in viewing these colleges and universities with magical power.

They can be wonderful places for a variety of different people.

And they can be places where you get miseducated.

They can be places where you get exposed to arrogance and condescension toward others who don't go to college.

That's not healthy for the soul or the society, you see.

So that I believe in free education, but there's got to be a variety of different possibilities people choose in order to live lives of decency and dignity.

Absolutely.

And I do have a certain, as you know, I got a bias toward the artist and the musician.

Oh, shoot.

My government would have significant subsidies so that the musicians don't have to worry about living lives of poverty in order to express themselves and so on.

Absolutely.

Now, we was talking about higher education, but I'm always wondering about public education.

Do you think it's still viable?

Do you think that what they've removed, what they've taken out of public education, what they're trying to add and teach is still even relevant anymore?

And should we be moving to something different?

Well, if the public schools had the resources that these private schools have, then we'd have much less of a problem.

And that's where, again, the paradigm shift is so very important.

You see, we've got to be as committed to our precious young people who are students in public schools as we do any other schools.

And that's a question of making sure the teachers are paid high salaries and you have teachers who care.

And it's a matter of making sure they have access to the technology, the curriculum and curriculums that speak to them to get them excited about learning and excited about the life of the mind and the world of ideas.

Oh man, well spoken.

Let me ask, we just had a recent situation in Dubai in UAE where a flood came through and they were not prepared for it.

And a lot of people look at that and say global warming is real.

For those that are, you know, looking into global warming, what are your thoughts, what are your policies towards and how do you plan on attacking the global warming stand front when you see ice caps melting, you see, you know, animals dying, you know, what are your thoughts towards that?

Oh no, I mean the ecological crisis is as real as a heart attack though, brother, there's no doubt about it.

And the first thing you have to do is declare a state of emergency to try to get a handle on the fossil fuel companies.

The fossil fuel companies, as I said before, with all of the coal and the oil used to more thoroughly pollute the atmosphere, leaving the carbon footprints, the globe cannot survive that.

It cannot survive that.

You have to call it for what it is.

Many people are in denial about it because if they acknowledged it, it would be a threat to their livelihood.

You know, we have to stop the fossil fuels, but we're scared of self driving cars.

We got to find a median, I tell you.

But there's ways in which, you know, you can have public transportation systems that are clean and we see examples of it even under private hospital in Tokyo and Seoul, Korea.

And so you travel to those places and people don't even need cars.

They don't have to worry about crime because they themselves also have safety nets and so on.

You see, you can get around quick.

You don't have to worry about finding a park and all this.

It's a different way of being.

And we had to be able to conceive of that.

And the only way you conceive of it is you can't have an idolatry.

America has an idolatrous addiction to short term profit.

And they think every problem in the world can be solved by short term profit.

But I know we're gonna have to.

You got two more questions.

I think my pizza is getting cold over here.

The dollar, they're trying to break it.

Other nations around the globe, it's not as powerful as it once used to be.

How do we get to a place where we can restrengthen that?

Or is that something that's going to just be done away with?

Well, there's going to be a transition.

The American empire will undergo decay and decline, and therefore, there will be a calling in the question of the American economic hegemony, American economic predominance.

And so you're going to get multipolarity.

You're going to get a variety of different sites in the.

In the world, on the globe.

And so I think it's inevitable.

The question is, how do you adjust yourself in such a way that you preserve the best of what's in place and then launch into a new paradigm in which you're taking care of the poor working people in your own country and concerned about poor and working people in other places, you see?

But there's no way that the present system can just continue to reproduce itself.

Dollarization, or whatever language you want to use.

For gender equality.

Can you speak to that as we're wrapping, as far as what is your stance on gender equality, the LGBTQ community, their rights, and where their rights should further go, or should it be limited?

And where do you stand?

Right.

Well, first we gotta begin on a moral and spiritual ground, that each human being is made in the image of a great God that has a certain dignity and sanctity which must never be violated.

You see?

So whether we agree or disagree with gay brothers, lesbian sisters, trans, and so forth, they must never be hated.

Never hated.

They're human beings.

And that's a primary priority that I have now.

People debate, you know, you get biblical scripture about gays and lesbians are trans, and it's true that, you know, some people talking about transitioning from one gender to the next for children, I think that goes too far.

But the important thing is that you gotta make sure that you have no hate at the center of your discourse.

A lot of the homophobia and transphobia I see is driven by too much hatred.

I have no patience for that at all.

There was a time in which male supremacy was so normal that the very idea of a woman going to college was unthinkable.

Not too long ago.

Not too long ago.

But that was a sick society, that the vast majority of humankind who are women somehow have less intelligence, less status, less egalitarian possibility than a man.

Simply because a man is a man.

No, not at all.

Not at all.

Now, of course, there are biological differences.

I don't know.

I want to.

I acknowledge that.

Absolutely so.

Absolutely so.

But when it comes to their humanity and sense of possibility and potential, I'm an egalitarian across the board, because each made in the image of a God and have the same status.

And that's a serious struggle.

Oh, indeed, indeed.

Look at Uganda right now.

Mistreating my gay brothers and lesbians.

That means James Baldwin couldn't walk the street.

Audre Lorde can't walk the street.

Please.

All they did for the African struggle, including Uganda, and they can't even walk the street because one's gay and the other is lesbian.

Laverne Cox.

We go on and on.

There's a magnificent human being.

That's the key.

And I'm uncompromising about that.

And I know a lot of people have disagreements with me and so forth, and I don't mind, you know, arguing and what have you, but I just don't want the hate to surface because once they start demonizing and the hate, I say, well, no, no, no.

I see we got something else going on here.

I'm not on the hate train.

There you go.

All right.

Dr.

Cornelis, lastly, one thing that you of course follow Trump is, you know, we see Trump in like Home Alone.

You were in the Matrix.

You had a situation where you in the Matrix Reloaded, Matrix Revolutions, and you had that, you know, you had that acting bug.

Why didn't not pursue that further?

Was it something you wanted to pursue?

And that's just a personal for you outside of politics?

The great Gerald Lavert.

Let us never forget the great Gerald Lavert.

Last single that he did is on my third album.

That that's probably what I would have chosen to do if I didn't serve a mighty God who told me to do something else, which is run for justice.

Dr.

Cornel west, you are a real life street star.

Oh, Lord, I salute you all.

Shout out reality street stars Nigga Mola.

Hey.