Joe Rogan Experience #1325 — Dr. Cornel West Transcript

Transcript

0:00 Boom and we're live. How are you sir? Oh brother, I'm so blessed to be here man Then when you tell me you worked with the great Richard Pryor. and I could not believe that anybody could be so funny just talking. I couldn't believe how funny it was. and it's connected to freedom, because I've always viewed Richard Pryor as the freest man in the 20th century, It changed my life. his own sense of self. He doesn't care what other people think. He doesn't know that you're looking for other people's approval,

2:15 such unfreedom, That's exactly right. Each one different. the room with him was strange i just couldn't believe it was real you know i was in my 20s Yeah, yeah. know he was dying and he's decided he'd go back to his love he wanted to go back doing stand-up Let me switch that in there. money he admitted to beating her ass so i beat her ass first didn't think about hitting a woman as

4:55 Yeah. I've never met a single comic that doesn't think he's one of the most important figures in the history of the art. Roseanne is profoundly talented. There's no doubt about it. Yeah. the dealers and so i love mon. Monique gets to me. She's been on this podcast a couple times. experiences, not the well-to-do. That was tragedy. Tragedy only had to do with the nobility and

8:28 Twain, Wes, Reed. any of the short stories. He's had over 6,000 characters in his short It'll blow your mind. Stephen Sondheim, No More, Into the Woods. I mean, the comic writers, the comedians of various sorts, be they on the stage or be they on the page, are, I think, vanguards of the species in a very deep way. We laugh with others rather than just at

11:04 spirit though brother and most of our lives That's free spirit, though, brother. introduced to freedom and it really catches hold, they say, oh, my God, it's a tremendous cost to be paid, but I like that. And courage is not widely distributed in the species, man. that now than ever oh yeah cancel culture that's exactly right yeah oh it's true it's very very

13:14 Yeah. about it because that's the one i read and it's so strange when you read something that's so You're simply trying to touch people's lives. Absolutely. Oh, no. You're stealing somebody's oil in another country, that's gangster. No, they haven't said evil Jews. But there's some good things. Aretha Franklin means the world to me. They've been here longer.

18:20 They've been here longer. They've been here longer. They've been here longer. They've been here longer. And so in that sense, you say, wait, wait, quit lying. Now see, that's where you get Chekhov and Shakespeare and Joyce and the blues. They're broken. Ooh. you need to get off You see it? are going to have his wife walks in we start with tears Jesus wept.

22:30 Is there any laughter in the Bible? A subtle grin. But as a human being, we know that things like – I don't subscribe to this idea that human beings are good or bad. There's no doubt. peter pan like figure up until he became president she grew powerful yeah but he hasn't grown up but Well, I think they love it. And he just tell the truth. He's still dropping bombs on the nine countries that have been dropping bombs for the last number of years.

26:57 is predicated on the monstrous crime Then we enslaved the Africans who become the basis of our economy. And then tremendous efforts come to expanding it, expanding it. and you know he's blind, you know what I mean? Reinhold Niebuhr, the greatest Christian thinker of the 20th century. and violation of liberties He looked like a cartoonist version of Joseph McCarthy.

30:16 Preserve that purity. question in terms of its dominating forms like the Soviet Union and China on the mile and so forth and so on. Do you think that socialism just hasn't been implemented correctly? problem is this that if we have to view democratic socialism as a moment in the larger movement of democracy. And that's precisely what the middle classes did when they broke from feudalism in Europe or broke from feudalism in other parts of the world, right?

33:48 There's never been a white supremacy without fighting against white supremacy, and that includes white brothers and sisters. But that's true for a whole lot of white brothers and sisters who fight against white supremacy. You ask Brubeck about white supremacy. I never thought about that before. various famines At all. But then they say, yes, you are.

36:42 What you going to do? You know, Chomsky would have got back there. Stanley Aronowitz would have got back there with the black folk. Don't don't believe the hype. supremacy begins to take place in the country. It's not the politicians. It really isn't. It Maybe they're human just like us. Somebody lied to me. That's a long time, though. That already shatters the white supremacists and male supremacist categories of whiteness, blackness, all in

41:04 like slavery and Jim Crow. So the United States comes out of the British Empire. They're fighting. This is where the comics come in. do you think that much like this country is an experiment in self-democracy a very recent See, what makes not just the United States, there's been democratic experiments Argentina's not known You see, Rockefeller and company had private militias that were bigger than a lot of public armies

44:38 They were just trying to ensure that ordinary people gain access to jobs with a living wage, decent education. he's a socialist tried to be governor of california right and what were they doing what were these accountability you see that's where that whole idea of the let the market decide falls apart But there are other, you need to have laws to make sure the water was clean and the food was regulated and clean and so there's a narrative that you get

47:14 Oh, that's a wonderful question. It's all it is. And it's not a matter of hating the rich, because I don't believe in hating anybody I hate patriarchy and so forth. Democrats voted for it, too. hardly any talk about it what about the innocent people we kill hardly any talk about it. What about the drones that we're still dropping? And it's done remotely.

50:53 I hope you all are able to take a few minutes of your time That's exactly right. And they can't even put a public spotlight on it. Oh, they deny they're even killing them. And what do you get? They don't want to consider it. They don't want to factor it in to what we think of when we think of America the great. And she told me as a Christian that if the kingdom of God is within you, then everywhere you go, you ought to leave a little heaven behind.

54:13 They're indigenous peoples, not just here, but around the world. and live large in some vanilla suburb, maybe with a trophy spouse, So that the great ones, like the Richard Pryors, you see, not a matter of how much money he made. Who cares about the richest black person in 1968 Try again, fail again, fail better. And recognizing that there is a lot of injustice in this world

57:19 not recognizing that everybody is in the same starting line. If we have these disenfranchised parts of this country same communities that he was dealing with them and he was generation after recognizing the red And it's because they don't want to do anything. No, that's very real. She's called the mother of human rights in California. Wow. citizens. But within the black community,

1:01:16 Mary Ellen Pleasant and others and Martin King and others are challenges for those of us who do have some resources to still raise our voices. And this is a battle within the communities of peoples of color because it's not going to be a matter of just pointing out white supremacy. Well, you see, those folk need to be lifted up because what does that do?

1:03:46 Now, you can be a Nazi genius like Martin Heidegger, who was a great philosopher and a genius and a thug when it comes to politics, you see. you see it's those moments that constitute the memory of what could be as opposed to what's in place. That you bring in the fact that we're living in such a grim moment, what I'd call, you know, the American empire in decline.

1:06:11 as you move through time, from mother's womb to tomb, right? And it's only in biographical time, Messiahs in groups. There's no Messiahs I am who I am because somebody loved me. like a puff of smoke. You got to let it go. make are predicated on of musical theater, just to know what greatness is in your genre. But that's one of the more important parts of being a person, right,

1:08:51 the taekwondo thing. just to turn on Courage, man. ali it's very interesting you know the time i spent with another genius named prince who we So he would associate himself with the black freedom movement called the civil rights movement. to the Nation of Islam and And he's Muslim to the core. His mother, of course, put in a sane asylum. Ooh. are not devils. Then

1:13:05 he said what he meant, to change their mind. what we could call soulful kenosis, K-E-N-O-S-I-S. Hmm after the concert he's given everything from falsetto to tenor to everything well ultimately When you walk off the stage at strange times, man, you're giving everything. That's not it. It's the work. You see that? When she goes to Coachella and she shows up at Coachella with all of the bands

1:16:58 and Aretha Franklin. Well, maybe she changed who she is because of criticism like yours. With Jay-Z, too. He was very hard on hip-hop. But I tell them, I say, I'm old school, y'all. I ain't got nothing against orgasm. One of the things that I bring a lot of critique to bear is, see, I am deeply shaped by the dramatics, the delphonics, the main ingredient, the whispers, Lakeside, James Brown's band,

1:19:47 Why is it we don't have large numbers of groups I would say the same with Ted Mills of Blue Magic. Everybody needs sweetness, kindness, gentleness. That's right, because I'm tied to smaller and smaller. deeply confused politically. So I tell the young folk, I say, you know, I could not have grown up without the sweetness of those rhythm and blues groups.

1:22:55 Not enough soul-stirring. Standing in front of the Bentleys. and the Jewish Brothers genius Dylan from Minnesota, Robert Zimmerman. educate you i need some education my brother he is one of those rare musicians where you hear And his sound, it's one of those things where there's no mistaking who's playing the music when you hear him play. This is them up there.

1:25:21 Now, how long ago was this? But it's also... Totally on the spot. They didn't at all. Lightning Hopkins. Yeah. He's an artist. He's very young. there yeah he's he's there's a signed poster of him over by the uh kitchen he signed something The vibrations that are sent are just beyond language. You know, the great John Coltrane had a whole philosophy of vibrations.

1:29:08 And it's not simply cerebral. Yeah. I was always into, God, everyone from Queen. I lived in San Francisco from seven to 11. Yeah. You know what I mean? And so classical music was always very important to me. And with Isaac Hayes and Black Moses and Great Barry White and others. But what's interesting is it was so good back then that people thought he sold his soul to the devil.

1:32:12 They wouldn't even understand what he was doing. I had a chance to see him live. The power out of his voice. with Rutherford and Mary Lou Williams and the others. So you can end up being a very good guitar player Like Stevie Ray Vaughan did. And there's a lot of controversy these days about cultural appropriation. And I asked him, they said, we don't understand completely, Brother West.

1:35:09 Of Eminem, you see. Righteous Brothers, another. You let those Scottish Brothers play And it's slow. Colonized by the British Empire. I know. I played at the Danny Glover the other day What you talking about? Yeah. You just got back from Thailand. It's a global thing They're so There's a momentum Of the way they live their lives. It's fine until four months of the year when it's just a frozen wasteland.

1:38:36 Cambridge is, I mean, it's a great place. It really is. But that's true, too. you got impending And then the political catastrophes of right-wing movements all around the world. If you're afraid of despair, you'll never have hope. Russia, China. There's no doubt about it. The worst in people because it's all about in-crowd, in-group security. Right. dog. Became an oppressor. And how they become top dogs, tied to the U.S. top dogs. Now, you always have, again, those Jewish voices and organization that are critical of Israeli occupation, critical

1:43:09 And Gaza and Tel Aviv must have a spotlight in terms of what those human beings are going artists who can authorize an alternative, even if only for a moment, an alternative. I was just talking to my dear brother, Mark Lamont Hill. Absolutely. And you can just feel the spirit coming through and the vibrations. vicious and hateful things are it never suffocates the human spirit hmm somebody

1:45:56 You got that, man? Yeah, we can get away with that. And they are both America's apple pie. I met him one time I think at the end I think. hanging out with the black brothers. JB, man. it's a context in which you embrace. Because they're the ones who undergo the monstrous crimes against humanity. Both things are real, too. But the Bible says in part, by thy works you shall know them.

1:50:49 The Roman Empire. And you say to Brother Michael Pence, so you're going to accommodate yourself to Donald Trump? Well, the narrative is that they broke the law and that they're imposing upon our great nation. to open and bring into the country those who are eager and have energy, hear all the time on the corporate media is if indigenous people's suffering has to be

1:53:29 I mean, we black people became central because our labor and our imagination and culture became central. They're allowed to have gambling. For the most part, it was a matter of the indigenous peoples coming together. through Canada all the way down to the southern section of the United States. And it was about minus 15 or whatever it was. can be very accommodating

1:56:16 But it sent tremendous ripples through the cultures of indigenous peoples and their nations This is so very important. What are the sources of joy? that's not pleasure, that's joy. You said so many amazing things today. This is one you are. What a human being