by Cornel West
But give them hearts to keep them warm
In homes high on a hill…
Our Father, God; our Brother, Christ
Or are we bastard kin,
That to our plaints your ears are closed,
Your doors barred from within?
Our Father, God; our Brother, Christ,
Retrieve my race again;
So shall you compass this black sheep,
This pagan heart. Amen.
There is Dr. King’s “A Pastoral Prayer” from 1956 in which he says, “We thank thee, O God, for the spiritual nature of man. We are in nature but we live above nature. Help us never to let anybody or any condition pull us so low as to cause us to hate. Give us strength to love our enemies and to do good to those who spitefully use us and persecute us.”
Jim’s book of prayers, a gift both from his people and to his people, became a bestseller and a permanent part of the African American library. It’s a living tribute to his faith. When he died of a stroke in 1997, he had just turned forty-nine. His other books— A Testament of Hope: The Essential Writings and Speeches of Martin Luther King, Jr., I Have a Dream: Writings and Speeches That Changed the World and Frustrated Fellowship: The Black Baptist Quest for Social Power—all carry the strength of spirit and the purposefulness of scholarship.
Jim asked the deepest questions we can ask: Why evil? Why oppression? Why the absurdity of human existence? He didn’t offer easy answers. Jim was never glib. He let the weight of those questions sit on the shoulders of those who asked them. He knew the questions wouldn’t go away; not then, not now, not ever. What he did do, though, was to live his life with a spiritual vigor—a kindness, a gentleness, a radiant love—that had you looking for the source of his strength.
If you looked closely, you saw Jesus Christ in Jim’s eyes. If you listened closely, you heard Jesus Christ in Jim’s voice. James Melvin Washington argued for the reality of God by not arguing at all. He proved the existence of the Prince of Peace through the exquisite peace that you felt in his very presence. Such peace lives forever.
Shortly after his passing, it was a blessing to be able to dedicate my book Restoring Hope to Jim. It was collection of conversations held at the historic Schomburg Center in Harlem headed by my dear brother Howard Dodson. I also coedited, with Quinton Hosford Dixie, a group of essays in honor of Brother Wash, The Courage to Hope.
Faith, hope, and love—the Christian virtues—were what Brother Wash was all about.
JUST TO KEEP YOU SATISFIED
LIKE JOHN COLTRANE AND JOHN KEATS, Marvin Gaye understood the tragicomic condition of human existence. Marvin was adored by women, yet his relationships with women were troubled. In typical autobiographical mode, he wrote the music to the film Trouble Man. Maintaining that same sense of candid self-revelation, in 1973 he recorded a song entitled “Just to Keep You Satisfied” and placed it at the end of Let’s Get It On, his erotic follow-up to What’s Going On
“Just to Keep You Satisfied” is not a typical love song. It is essentially free-form storytelling. There is no verse, chorus, or bridge. There’s only the tormented tale of Marvin’s marriage to his first wife, Anna Gordy Gaye. It is, in fact, an indication that the marriage has failed and anticipates another Marvin masterpiece that will come five years later, Here, My Dear, the complete delineation of that complex relationship and its bittersweet conclusion.
I cite Marvin because there are times when singers and songs say things about our lives that we can’t. Back in high school, it was common for the folk to put on a love song—say, Smokey’s “Ooh Baby Baby” and tell his honey, “Darling, this is how I feel about you.” In short, the song says it better. In that spirit, Marvin’s “Just to Keep You Satisfied” brings to mind my complex relationship with Elleni and its unfortunate demise. The lyrics are by no means a literal description of our situation, but the spirit—the pathos, the regret, the sense of defeat—are all emotions to which I relate.
You were my wife, my life, my hopes and dreams
For you to understand what this means
I shall explain...
My one desire was to love you
And think of you with pride
And keep you satisfied…
Farewell, my darling, maybe we’ll meet down the line
It’s too late for you and me, much too late for you and I…
We tried, God knows we tried…
Marvin’s anguish is palpable. There is in his voice the terrible recognition that the dream of domestic tranquility has ended in what can only be called failure. Listening to the song I keep hearing those words of Samuel Beckett: “Try again. Fail again. Fail better.”
“WHY DO YOU THINK IT’S FAILING?” Cliff asked me, referring to my marriage to Elleni. “It began so beautifully.”
“She’s still beautiful,” I said. “She’ll always be beautiful. Beautiful heart. Beautiful soul. Beautiful mind. She’s also grown beautifully as an aware human being in the years that I’ve known her. She’s taken up the AIDS cause in Africa and assuming a leadership position that’s truly impressive. Man, she’s just an impressive woman.”
“I know, Corn,” said Cliff. “We all love her. Mom loves her like a daughter.”
“Mom also saw what was happening. Last time Mom was here, she was talking to Elleni about my work. She asked Elleni whether she’d watched me on C-SPAN the week before. ‘Oh no,’ Elleni said. ‘I don’t always watch Corn when he’s on TV.’”
In talking to Cliff, I realized that my initial reaction to Elleni’s disinterest in my work was happiness. I was happy that she was not emotionally invested in my career. That meant she loved me, rather than the public person I’d become. I found that gratifying and reassuring. But then here comes the pull between the personal and professional. Here comes the pull between the passion, as Marvin put it, “to keep you satisfied,” and the passion to satisfy those unrelenting demands of the bluesman’s mission to keep singing his blues whenever and wherever he can.
“Here’s the problem,” said Cliff. “You love her too much to stay. You love her so much you gotta leave. The more successful you become, the less she sees herself as being part of you. It’s not that she’s jealous of your success. She loves your success. But paradoxically, the better you do, the worse she feels. That’s been the pattern with all your women. The truth, bro, is that everything comes second to your calling. You have so much multifaceted love and energy that the affirmation you bring your partner is off the scale. That’s your genuine gift. But sooner or later, the calling will have its due. Your sweet is so sweet that it only makes it that much more painful for the partner when the calling comes a-calling.”
Years later, my dear brother Tavis Smiley put it like this: “When you talk to students, or even to strangers, you make them feel good about themselves. You listen to their points of view, and even if you disagree, you give them the courtesy of considering whatever they say. They go away from those encounters feeling like, ‘Good Lord, Cornel West has listened to me and validated that I’ve got something to say!’ Those encounters are beautiful, and they’re empowering for the people who interact with you. But, in character, they are diametrically opposed to the long-term relationships you’ve had with women. Those women could never quite figure out where they fit into your life. How does a mate deal with someone like you? In order to do so, they have to be unbelievably confident about their own place in the world—and their place in your world. Without that confidence, they can’t help but feel less-than. It deepens their insecurities. And when you sense that feeling coming over them, to protect them—in fact, to save them—you leave. You see that, in order to grow—for you to grow and for them to grow—you need to get out of the way.”
Analyses of my relationships with women could go on endlessly. My brother Cliff has his point of view. Close friends like Tavis have theirs. My own perspective is that, whatever the reasons, I was unsuccessful in maintaining marriages three different times. Each began with dedication an
d hope. Each ended with the recognition that it simply wasn’t working. Each began in love and ended in love.
The basic problem with my love relationships with women is that my standards are so high—and they apply equally to both of us. I seek full-blast mutual intensity, fully-fledged mutual acceptance, full-blown mutual flourishing, and fully felt peace and joy with each other. This requires a level of physical attraction, personal adoration, and moral admiration that is hard to find. And it assumes a depth of trust and openness for a genuine soul-sharing with a mutual respect for a calling to each other and to others. Does such a woman exist for me? Only God knows and I eagerly await this divine unfolding. Like Heathcliff and Catherine’s relationship in Emily Bronte’s remarkable novel Wuthering Heights or Franz Shubert’s tempestuous piano Sonata No. 21 in B flat (D.960), I will not let life or death stand in the way of this sublime and funky love that I crave!
The words of Brother Marvin bear repeating. He said it better than I ever could:
And when we stopped the hands of time
You set my soul on fire
My one desire was to love you
And think of you with pride
And keep you satisfied
Oh baby, we could not bear the mental strain
Elleni Gebre Amlak set my soul on fire. I’ll always think of her with pride. It pains me to this day that I somehow couldn’t stay with her. She is a magnificent woman. But the mental strain broke down our bond, and the result, in spite of the deep love, was a divorce that left me with a broken heart and a busted bank account.
THE BLUESMAN, BROKE OR NOT, keeps on keeping on. When it comes to money, by now you know that this particular bluesman has always been funny. I’ve had folk come up to me and say, “Brother West, I’ll never forget the time you reached into your pocket and gave me $300 cause I couldn’t pay the rent.” And the funny thing is, I was behind on my own rent. If I have it and somebody else needs it, it’s theirs. Beyond the money woes, though, there was work to do, songs to sing, books to write, struggles to wage.
As the ’90s neared a close, I had the unadulterated joy of collaborating with my dear sister Sylvia Ann Hewlett. For five long years, she and I collaborated on a seminal text called The War Against Parents, a defense of the ultimate non-market activity— parenting—in a market-driven culture. Nothing, we argued, is more crucial than loving, caring, and nurturing our precious children in the face of materialism, hedonism, and narcissism. I worked with her National Parenting Association in local branches across the nation. Her family is family, and I love them dearly.
I have always believed that I am who I am because somebody loved me. The love saturation that I received from my parents has been the wind at my back throughout my life. My decision to highlight the delicate and difficult challenge of parenting is my tribute to the supreme parenting that I received. There is a sense in which so much hurt in the world is attributable to unsupported, frustrated, or neglectful parenting. The decline of concern and decay of care for children is a fundamental feature in contemporary society. If we do not address it with personal care and public policy the future looks grim.
In 1998, the same year of The War Against Parents, I was blessed to publish with the grand philosopher Roberto Mangabeira Unger The Future of American Progressivism, a book based on our course taught at Harvard Law over a number of years. Unger, of Brazilian origin, is a passionate lover of truth and justice, and one of the world’s unrivaled public intellectuals. Around this time, I was surprised by a request to offer my opinion in the field of pop culture. The request came from Warren Beatty. He called me early one morning from Hollywood to say that he had just finished a film called Bulworth and wasn’t sure whether to release it.
“I’d be grateful if you could take a look at it, professor,” he said.
“I wish I could, but my time is tight and I don’t see how I could get out there.”
“I’ll come to you, and I’ll bring the film.”
“When?”
“I’ll fly out on a private jet this morning, buy out a movie theater in Copley Square, and we can watch it there tonight.”
That’s exactly what happened. The other invited guests were Norman Mailer and his wife. When the film was over, Warren turned to me and asked the $64,000 question, “Should I release it?”
I didn’t hesitate. “Absolutely,” I said. “It’s a fascinating critique of capitalism and market-driven politics. I think it’s provocative and needs to be seen.”
Warren was relieved. Afterwards, he, the Mailers, and I talked our heads off till three in the morning in the bar of the Four Seasons Hotel, dissecting everything from German philosophy to South Bronx hip-hop.
In a similar vein, my dear brother Will Smith, whom I met at the Million Man March, called me to meet in Boston just prior to the premier of his film Ali. We could not stop talking. It could have been hours. It could have been days. We dialogued along with his beautiful wife Jada and his gracious mother-in-law the pivotal role of Muhammad Ali in the turbulent ’60s. I am no way surprised that Will is the biggest box office star of our time given his talent and determination.
A few years later, I had encounters with several major hip-hop figures. The first was with Sean Combs, aka P. Diddy. Serious criminal charges had been leveled against the brother, and he was at one of the low points of his life. His attorney, my dear friend Johnnie Cochran, Jr., called.
“Corn, Sean is in deep trouble. Could you possibly come to the courthouse and lend some moral support? Having a man of integrity like you, sitting right there next to him, is going to mean a lot to everyone.”
“I’ll be there,” I said.
I spent a number of days in the courthouse with Sean and his lovely mother.
“It’s going to all right, brother,” I told him. And it was. I was elated when Sean was acquitted.
I was also flattered when I was asked to help out Jay-Z. American Express was looking to put him in a major commercial, but they were being extremely cautious. That’s why they requested Geoffrey Canada, the founder of the historic Harlem Children’s Zone, and I meet with him. Next thing I knew I was kicking it at Jay-Z’s townhouse with the man himself. The three of us had a beautiful three-hour conversation. Not only did American Express give him the gig, but I wound up with a star guest at my seminar. And he wasn’t the only one. Jay-Z joined Toni Morrison and Phylicia Rashad in a discussion of the “Black Intellectual Tradition,” where he said that he was aspiring to be Plato to Biggie’s Socrates.
Another fascinating moment for me came when the Rosa Parks Foundation sued my dear brothers, OutKast, for defaming the name of Ms. Parks in the hip-hop duo’s popular song. The chorus said, “Ah-ha, hush that fuss. Everybody move to the back of the bus.” Jesse Jackson and Al Sharpton, among others, supported the foundation. Knowing the political sensitivity and poetic creativity of OutKast, I was convinced that they had been misunderstood. In no way were they demeaning Rosa Parks. My feeling was that OutKast was the victim of a certain intolerance when it came to hip-hop and rap. I went so far as to write a brief on their behalf. Happily, the suit was settled in a just manner.
O’HARE AIRPORT, AFTERNOON FLIGHT to Houston. I was on my way to Texas to deliver the keynote address to a formal affair for black professionals. The minute I stepped on the plane I spotted Snoop Dogg and, just like that, announced publicly, “Lyrical genius on the plane!”
Snoop and I embraced.
“Snoop,” I said, “it’s a blessing to meet you. Your flow is a species of historical memory for me. The way you rap reflects the struggle of a great people. And there are several other things I love about you. First, I love your love for the Dramatics.”
“You got that right,” he said. “I was raised listening to them. And you know, there is a slight difference between folk who love the Dramatics and those who love the Temptations.”
“Yeah, it’s Stax versus Motown. We love both of them, but the Dramatics are a little funkier.”
“I�
��ll go with you on that.”
“I also want to offer congratulations to you and your son, Snoop. I just read how your coaching helped him win the state championship. But the main thing I want to tell you, man, is that I feel in your lyrical flow the spirit of Curtis Mayfield. In fact, my own calling is to keep alive the spirit and legacy of Martin Luther King, Jr., John Coltrane and Curtis.”
Snoop’s eyes lit up with astonishment. He called over one of his guys.
“Tell Brother West,” Snoop said, “the name of the one old-school cat who I never stop talking about, the one who moves me the most.”
“Curtis Mayfield,” his guy responded. “Man, you’ve been locked into Curtis ever since I’ve known you.”
At that moment, we couldn’t do anything but give each other another big hug.
“Are you performing in Houston?” I asked Snoop.
“Yes, tomorrow night. And I’d love to have you as my guest.”
“I’d love to be there, but I take a plane out early tomorrow morning. But, say, why don’t you be my guest at my lecture tonight?”
“I’m kinda jammed up, but I could swing by for fifteen minutes or so.”
That evening the top brass and black elite of Houston packed the hotel ballroom—men in tuxes, women in evening gowns. Lo and behold, just as I was walking up to the podium to speak, here comes Brother Snoop and his posse, dressed in classic hip-hop style. I acknowledged his presence and proceeded to lecture on the rich tradition of struggle for freedom in black history. After fifteen minutes, I saw that Snoop still hadn’t left. After twenty-five minutes, the brother was still sitting there. And then, amazingly enough, when I had completed my talk, some seventy minutes after I had begun, there was Snoop, deeply engrossed. I then invited him to the stage.
“I’m going to take the wise words of Professor West,” he said, “and not just walk with them, but run with them. Run, run, run.”
