Cornel West: Obama ‘Paternalistic’ to Young Black Men, but ‘Subservient’ to Wall Street

Cornel West has been one of President Obama‘s biggest liberal critics, both on race and foreign policy, and in a new video for TIME, West says that Obama has a very “paternalistic” way of speaking when he addresses young black men.

He expresses his disappointment that there’s no “unbelievable courage” or compassion from Obama when it comes to speaking out on behalf of the poor or the wrongfully incarcerated.

And West finds it remarkable that Obama’s “speaking to black young boys in a very paternalistic way, but you get to Wall Street and you speak in a very subservient way.”

West also thinks that Al Sharpton and Jesse Jackson are doing a disservice by always being “center-stage and don’t allow the new voices to come forward.”

Watch the video below, via TIME:

[image via screengrab]

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Follow Josh Feldman on Twitter: @feldmaniac

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