Obama is losing much of the radical black community. Here is a leading black intellectual, clearly expressing his displeasure with Obama

To the left is Professor Cornel West. I know he looks like a nutcase, but, honestly, he is anything but. He is much respected in both liberal and conservative camps. Of course he has a liberal/black bias but he must not be dismissed because of that fact. We all have bias; some call it a "world view."

True Black Radicals and Barack Obama

John Smithson, editor

Cornel West is a Princeton University professor and leading black intellectual. Until fairly recently, he was a big-time supporter of Barack Obama. In fact, West made more than 60 campaigns appearances on behalf of Obama during the 2008 campaign season.

The two men seemed to have much in common. Obama had positioned himself as a black intellectual, himself, a constitutional professor, a man of letters and words . . . kind of like Cornel West. But in a posted interview, yesterday, with folks at Truthdig, West spoke out in the most critical of terms, branding Obama as “a black mascot of Wall Street oligarchs and a black puppet of corporate plutocrats.”

In the end, Cornel West's chief complaint is that Obama has not been true to his acknowledged race (a black father and white mother - one a Muslim and the other an atheist). Understand that Obama was raised "white," but has apparently rejected the claim to being "white." Obama is one of a new class of black leaders coming onto the scene. He has never demonstrated for black causes, walked the streets of Birmingham and a hate filled white South, or, even crafted legislation that directly effects the black cause.

But, by rite of the presidency, he is the foremost black leader in America and Cornel West is telling folks who will listen that Obama has not been true to his race.

While at Princeton as Professor of African American Studies, West maintained a rather radical/militant presence supporting Malcolm X, the Black Panther Party and James Cone, the founder and, dare I say, the inventor of a thing called Black Liberation Theology. Understand that Obama sat at the feet of Jeremiah Wright for nearly 22 years, listening to a constant barrage of Black Liberation Theology.

West was convinced of Obama's radicalism. I think Obama, himself, considered himself a radical as defined by Liberation Theology.

In support of this notion, I give you three statements (there are many more):

July 2, 2008, Obama had this to say: "We cannot continue to rely only on our military in order to achieve the national security objectives that we've set. We've got to have a civilian national security force that's just as powerful, just as strong, just as well-funded.

On October 30, 2008, he told a cheering crowd, "We are five days away from fundamentally transforming the United States of America. "

Finally, we have these words from Michelle Obama, talking about what her husband is about to do with regard to the United States: (May of 2008): "Barack knows that we are going to have to make sacrifices; we are going to have to change our conversation; we're going to have to change our traditions, our history; we're going to have to move into a different place as a nation."

One simply cannot read the above without sensing an intentional and well defined radicalism. Compare the words of Barack and Michelle with this Cornel West statement: "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." (source: http://www.answers.com/topic/cornel-west)

Cornel West still talks the talk. Barack and Michelle have moved on and in the moving on, they have become more "white" than Cornel West can accept.

“I think my dear brother Barack Obama has a certain fear of free black men,” West said. “It’s understandable. As a young brother who grows up in a white context, brilliant African father, he’s always had to fear being a white man with black skin. All he has known culturally is white…When he meets an independent black brother, it is frightening.”

“Obama, coming out of [a] Kansas influence [with his]white, loving grandparents, coming out of Hawaii and Indonesia, when he meets these independent black folk who have a history of slavery, Jim Crow, Jane Crow and so on, he is very apprehensive,” West said in the Truthdig interview.

Finally, I leave you with these words from the Cornel West interview:

“He [Obama] has a certain rootlessness, a deracination. . . . ”