The Collegian

Issue date: 2/10/05 Section: News

Media Credit: Karyn Gilbert West welcomes everyone to the reception in the Presidents Room, where political science major Mindy Kreitzman was waiting first in line.

Media Credit: Karyn Gilbert West signs posters for participants.

"Black history is about human history, American history, and like the president (Cherie Randolph, president of the African American Student Union at UOP) said, should be recognized," Dr. Cornel West explained.

"It is important and should be recognized all year and not just one month," said Randolph in the welcoming.

"What does it mean to be a human? What kind of human being do you want to be? What kind of legacy do you want to leave?" These were just some questions West asked of his UOP audience, Saturday, Feb. 5.

West is a University professor and author of the best-selling book "Race Matters." His most recent book is "Democracy Matters." Teddy Roosevelt's biography influenced his academic future and led him to the soil of Harvard University. He now serves as an honorary chair of the Democratic Socialists of America. Some of you may have seen him in the "Matrix" trilogy, as he was an influential force in the development of the storyline.

West came to UOP to inform students about black history month.

"Who really wants to come to terms about slavery and early stages of white American democracy? That is why black history month is so important," West said. "Black history begins with death and despair."

He went on to say that many African Americans started at the bottom, with fear and hatred.

"The whites are treating blacks like animals (and) something's wrong with that," he said.

He was in New York when the attacks on American Sept. 11 occurred. He saw the second plane hit the tower, which reminded him of the feeling that many slaves felt.

"...Feeling unsafe, unprotected, subject to violence, and hated," said West. "The whole nation was made 'niggerized' (after that)."

West wants students to know how things were, and to think of everyone as equal human beings; that it wasn't right to treat the African Americans the way they were treated. He wants them to "die" and be reborn to understand what went on.

"I want students to let (what they were told) to die so they can be reborn, so the things that Uncle John and Aunt so-and-so said (can die)," he said. "That's what it means to die; to realize that the blacks aren't like what whites (stereotype) them to be."

He wants students to enrich life, live to the fullest, and to walk forward and not look back.

"Someone who has never loved deeply has never lived," said West. "I'm for people finding their own voice. And when there is no vision the people will perish.

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