VIDEO: Chris Hedges, Cornel West on Black Prophetic Tradition

In the premiere episode of his TeleSUR show, “Days of Revolt,” Chris Hedges sits down with political commentator and professor Cornel West to discuss the black prophetic tradition, a movement described in West’s recent book, “Black Prophetic Fire.”

Calling his book a love letter to the younger generation, West says: “Young people, you are waking up in a magnificent way from sleepwalking, but there is a magnificent tradition that constitutes wind at your back. You’re not going to get it in corporate media. You’re not going to get it in mainstream discourse. The neoliberals who dominate corporate media, they want to financialize, privatize and militarize. Lo and behold, the black prophetic tradition says, ‘No, we’re critical of pro-Wall Street policy to generate more capitalist wealth and inequality,’ when it comes to privatize. ‘No, we want public life. We want a sense of what we hold in common.’ “

Hedges and West also delve into the idea of slavery as original sin, the legacy of white supremacy and the sense that something died in black America with the assassination of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.

“What died was a sense of ‘we’ consciousness,” West explains. “The market mentality took over there. The ‘I’ consciousness, the narcissistic, predatory, careeristic, opportunistic proclivities took over.”

–Posted by Jenna Berbeo