ON THE ROAD: Dr. Cornel West and journalist Tavis Smiley recently concluded their 14-city "Poverty Tour" to bring attention to the plight of America's poor.
Last week media personality Tavis Smiley and his radio show sidekick, Princeton professor Cornel West, wrapped up their seven-day 14-city “Poverty Tour,” for which they caught plenty of hell. Launched to raise awareness to the plight of America’s expanding poor in this depressed economy, critics, from regular folks on social networking websites, to bloggers, to media personalities, labeled Smiley and West everything from “Obama haters” to “cry babies” to “poverty pimps” and worse. Comedian and radio show host Steve Harvey recently branded them “Uncle Toms,” on air, the ultimate diss for black people who are disloyal to their race — in this case their criticism of President Barack Obama, the nation’s first black President.
As a journalist, I’ve met both Smiley and West on occasion but don’t know either of them personally. Still, calling them “Toms” seems overboard. Both men believed their critique of the president and cause for the poor is just and in the spirit of their Christian faith. They deserve praise for using their platforms to take action. Attendees at their tour stops reportedly showed love. What concerns me as a Christian and observer is why these two intelligent brothers chose to advocate in a way they know won’t move the needle one bit for the poor. Why a model that more resembles what Glenn Beck would do than what Jesus would?
Servant Leaders or Advocate Entrepreneurs?
Smiley and West could’ve chosen the servant leader model, exemplified by the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. and other disciples of the civil rights movement. Through nonviolent passive resistance, they raised the nation’s consciousness and got policies changed. King was unfortunately assassinated in 1968 in the midst of leading the Poor People’s Campaign calling for an economic Bill of Rights (sound familiar?) to end poverty among all Americans. There’s also Mohandas Gandhi, the Hindu philosopher who inspired King. Through nonviolence, hunger strikes, and skillfully mobilizing peasant farmers, Gandhi led India to independence from Great Britain. A trained lawyer, Gandhi eloquently confronted Britain’s most powerful, yet related equally to the poor, though, like King, he was of a higher socioeconomic class.
Jesus Christ — the ultimate divine servant leader — inspired both King and Gandhi and obviously changed the world. Servant leaders succeed because of their moral fortitude, skillful planning, and ability to inspire and empower people in concrete ways. Most importantly, they are committed to self-sacrifice.
That’s the problem with Smiley and West.
As Smiley complained of perceived slights, such as Obama being the first president to not invite him to the White House, and West whined that Obama didn’t hook him up with a ticket to his inauguration, their self-absorption became blatantly clear. Could you picture King or Gandhi voicing such drivel? If advocating nationally for the poor is truly your calling (it’s not mine) why not lead a hunger strike or a fast? How about camping out in a tent near the White House or Capitol Hill until change comes? How about organizing and mobilizing voters in the way the Tea Party advocates have done to elect politicians who would pass a poor people’s Stimulus Bill? You both evoke King’s words concerning the poor, why not his manner?
Smiley and West’s method was more like Beck, the multimillion-dollar right-wing media mogul/talk show host who fashions himself as an evangelical bullhorn for angry whites. Beck has done road shows, packed auditoriums, and even held a rally on the National Mall on the day commemorating the historic 1963 March of Washington. Beck’s is the “Entrepreneur Advocate” model, where the speaker to the crowd is the only one whose wallet gets enriched. Beck has mastered this hustle. Smiley has long been associated with it, too.
So what are Smiley and West really peddling?
Besides selling books and a Poverty Tour TV special and DVD that I suspect will be released later, I believe Smiley and West’s goal is to hustle their way into President Obama’s inner circle. The tour was part of their angling for a “come to Jesus meeting” like the “beer summit” that Henry Louis Gates Jr., West’s black contemporary at Harvard, enjoyed after his spat with a white police officer made headlines. Smiley and West would love to commune with the prez at the White House on red wine, crackers and cheese. They likely would want to broadcast the meeting/interview on Smiley’s TV show.
Don’t be shocked if it happens close to Election Day 2012.
And, in the meantime, the poor will remain among us.
The opinions expressed in this commentary belong to the writer and are not necessarily the views of UrbanFaith.com or Urban Ministries, Inc.
And to your point, Dr. West is often talking about MLK, so you’d think he would have adopted methods more like King’s than this tour. I too wondered just how much good their tour did.
MLK participated in many tours just like this one along the rigirous road that lead up to the march’s that got at least one of the hands of Americ’s Down trodden’ed folk of all cultures and of all racial profiles out of the shackles that hampered them. Maybe, just maybe this is the “GENESIS” that will free, or at least lead up to the course of action that frees the other hand.
Sounds about right to me although I like Dr. West and Tavis Smiley…it seems they haven’t given President Obama a fair shot since he was first elected…however, I don’t think that every black person that criticizes our president wants to be in his inner circle or is a “hater.”
Jackie: I agree that ANYONE ought to be able to criticize the prez. I interviewed Nikki Giovanni and she certainly has been critical of the prez, but not in what seems to be a self-serving manner. Check out the entire biblical passage that I cited. It addresses the issue of motive. These two brothers are intelligent. They had to have thought all of the scenarios through.
All three men love God and they love people. They are very intelligent men. I believe the issue most people have with Smiley and West is that they aren’t giving President Obama the benefit of the doubt. Everything about Obama’s election was about strategy so why would he just stop strategically doing things now that he’s the president? He doesn’t have to explain himself to smiley/west but, he does need to give the American people some kind of glimpse into his tactics. That’s where his judgement is failing~
Is it just me or does it seem that everyone evokes MLK these days to prove their point? I personally find it offensive. MLK led an amazing movement and did things in this country that can not be minimized, but I don’t want people of every political stripe and color claiming that he would have agreed with them. We can make guesses, but the fact is we don’t know exactly where MLK would stand politically if he were alive today. And I’m sure that I’d have political disagreements with him regardless of the great things he did, so just saying, “What would MLK do?” doesn’t really sway me one way or another.
Mr. Wil LaVeist’s criticism of the style used by Rev. Dr. Cornell West and Mr. Tavis Smiley is a very poor analysis. He states that Rev. Dr. West and Mr. Smiley have a right to criticize the President, but they are doing so solely for their own economic gain. He them likens them to Glen Beck. I find no evidence of that mean spirited criticism. Rev. Dr. West has lost prosperous positions in academia because of his principled stances for the disenfranchised, and so has Mr. Smiley. Mr. LaVeist comments that Rev. West and Mr. Smiley should have used strategies like the strategies used by Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King and Mahatma Gandhi used; however, neither King nor Gandhi were convinced of what the outcomes would be for the strategies they used. They choose their tactics after prayer and meditation, and almost blind to the end results. Often they were challenged, and lobbied to not use them. The record shows in King’s letter from a Birmingham jail that the American Christian Church wanted him to slow down and change course. President Kennedy, Attorney General Kennedy and Chicago Mayor Richard Daley put enormous pressure on Dr. King to change his strategies. Dr. King was called a profiteer and a Communist for forging ahead and asking the question, “If not now then when?” They chose their strategies because it was the principled thing to do at the time, with the hope that it would encourage world enlightenment, foster hope in the adversely affected victims and to change governmental policies. If Rev. Dr. King and Mahatma Gandhi knew they would be assassinated for their actions I am sure they would have altered some of their plans.
No! Neither Rev. Dr. Cornel West nor Mr. Tavis Smiley is an Uncle Tom. They are desperately trying to refocus America on the shredding of the safety net for the poor in America, under the leadership of a Black President. Remember their spiritual leader Jesus Christ will judge us all and welcome those into heaven based on the criteria articulated by Jesus himself in Matthew 25:35-36. “. . .for I was hungry and you gave Me food; I was thirsty and you gave Me drink; I was a stranger and you took Me in; 36 I was naked and you clothed Me; I was sick and you visited Me; I was in prison and you came to Me.’
I bet the truth lies somewhere in the middle.