I wish I could have cut him out altogether because there's no innuendo, no smear too low for Dyson "a rank careerist in the army of personal upward mobility". Black Agenda Report got his number
in their article Seeking Hillary’s Favor: Dyson Attacks Cornel West
“The true purpose of his elongated smear of Dr. West is to demonstrate to Hillary Clinton’s camp that Dyson remains a loyal Democratic Party operative who is available for service to the new regime.”
...
Dyson has resorted to icon assassination because West’s highly visible critique of Obama’s domestic and foreign policy is an embarrassment to the administration, to the Democratic Party as an institution, and to the sycophantic Black Misleadership Class that has been more loyal to Obama than to Black people as a group. Mostly, Dyson is mad because Dr. West called him out, personally.
so does BlackMillenials
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After reading the infamous article penned by Michael Eric Dyson, in which he vehemently attacks controversial public intellectual Cornel West, I was left with a facepalm and a need for a strong cocktail. The entire diatribe felt like a jilted lover desparately clinging to a neoliberal analysis of Black cultural traditions.
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Dyson’s article reads like a buy-in to neoliberal advocation of Black status in public life. From the beginning, his likening of Black artistic visionaries and scholars in hierarchal fashion is an awkward analogy easily suctioned through a corporate lens. Challenges to Black male sexuality is one of the oldest tricks in the white supremacist playbook. And the fact that Dyson, trained in Black traditions and history, gently evoked such a tactic is damn close to Black betrayal.
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Altogether, Dyson’s prolix revilement is suspiciously convenient. His words could be read as a preemptive strike in a germinal 2016 presidential campaign. A character assassination — a means to discredit West before he’s called upon to impugn the political integrity of top contenders for a post-Obama White House.
Like Hillary Clinton.
The heavyweight Democrat has a robust campaign machine — with political recognition, financial access, and unrivaled experience, her role in the presidential race is a solid one. She’s qualified, determined, brilliant, and pragmatic…and she’s keeping her eye on the Black base. With many high profile grassroots pro-Black activists publicly questioning her commitment to Black Liberation, she knows she’ll need Black foot soldiers with more reach and validity firmly in her corner.
Dyson is a good fit. He has the connections and platform without the threat. Cornel West is a threat. A few choice words about Clinton’s ties to mass incarceration and the Black base starts to look for other political options.
To me, Dyson’s article was a strategic maneuver — a preemptive setup that’s weak-kneed at best, and betrayal at worst. Dyson positioned himself as a respectable Black savior attuned to the revolutionary vibe, but deeply invested in capitalist/political infrastructure. Cornel West is his arch-villain, a fallen angel suffocating in the clutches of a demented satanic-like possession, while Dyson is a deliverer of reasonable truth and justice, even when, with closer inspection, his words ring shallow.
http://blackmillennials.com/2015/04/21/about-that-dyson-article/
= new reply since forum marked as read
