In this essay, adapted from his book The Center Holds: Obama and His Enemies, author Jonathan Alter breaks down the relationship between President Barack Obama and prominent African Americans, including Cornel West, the Rev. Al Sharpton and Michael Eric Dyson, from the 2012 midterm elections to his second inauguration.
In July 2010 the president spotted Cornel West in the front row of the audience for his speech to the National Urban League. West had given speeches around the country saying that Obama wasn’t a true progressive and that he couldn’t “in good conscience” tell people to vote for him, though he admitted that his failure to secure special inauguration tickets for his mother and brother contributed to his hard feelings.
After the Urban League speech, Obama came down to West’s seat and grew angry. “I’m not progressive? What kind of sh– is this?” the president hissed, his face contorted. West said later that a brassy African-American woman standing behind him told the president to his face, “How dare you speak to Dr. West like that!” and argued after Obama left that the obscenity would have justified removal by the Secret Service had it come from anyone else.
In the months following the confrontation, West stepped up his attacks, calling Obama a “Black mascot of Wall Street oligarchs and a Black puppet of corporate plutocrats.” He added, “I think my dear brother Barack Obama has a certain fear of free Black men. It’s understandable. As a young brother who grows up in a White context, brilliant African father, he’s always had to fear being a White man with Black skin.”
After the blowup with West, the president welcomed Al Sharpton and a half-dozen other Black hosts and commentators to the Roosevelt Room of the White House. The subject turned to Tavis Smiley, a PBS host (and co-host of a radio show with West) who was also severely critical of Obama. Tom Joyner, a strong Obama supporter and host of the top-rated Black talk-radio show, thought that West and Smiley (neither of whom was invited) were causing other Blacks to denigrate the president. He began to mix it up with the author Michael Eric Dyson, who wanted the administration to target its efforts more on particular Black needs.
