Prophetic Witness in the American Empire: A Conversation with Cornel West

Abstract

Prophetic Witness in the American EmpireA Conversation with Cornel West Karlos K. Hill (bio) Click for larger view View full resolution Photo by Stacey Reynolds In his ongoing column, Karlos K. Hill highlights the efforts of cultural figures doing works of essential good around issues of social justice. Cornel West, who recently retired from Princeton University as the Class of 1943 University Professor in the Center for African American Studies, visited the University of Oklahoma in August 2023. He was on campus to take part in OU's Presidential Speaker Series in a point/counterpoint discussion, "Saving America: Conflicting Views in Civil Dialogue," with his Princeton colleague Robert P. George. Dr. West graciously sat down with me before that conversation to take part in the following exchange for World Literature Today. [End Page 49] Karlos K. Hill: Brother West, I've been wanting to tell you that the title of my "Bearing Witness" column comes directly from you. It's inspired by you. Cornel West: That's fascinating. Hill: Of all my framings, I use bearing witness the most because I've heard you talk about it the most: we've got to bear witness to injustice. So, this column in World Literature Today is definitely inspired by you. And I've made bearing witness, because of you, the cornerstone of how I organize my academic life. It's not just about teaching, it's about bearing witness. You know, there's a profound difference between teaching and bearing witness as you teach. I've learned to center that—not only the scholarship but just being in the world—because you centered it as a Black studies scholar, very publicly and unabashedly. This column is really an homage to you. I just want you to know that. Click for larger view View full resolution Photo courtesy of AAE Speakers. West: That's beautiful. I appreciate that, brother, I really do. I'm touched by it, man, because we're all cracked vessels, you know? We are trying to do the best that we can do. Bearing witness is all about trying to be true to the best that's been poured into us by those who came before, who set such high standards, and we all fall short. Samuel Beckett is right: you try again, fail again, fail better, in that beautiful line in his last prose fiction. And yet, even in failing better, we are able to at least be forces for good, in John Coltrane's language. That's really what it's all about. Whatever the context is—it could be in the classroom, could be in the street, could be in the cell, could be in the suite; it could be in the church, the mosque, the synagogue; it could be on the corner, could be in the nightclub—we all can bear witness. Now, of course, it's also biblical, which is to say it's about kenosis, you see? It's about emptying yourself. It's about resisting the compartmentalization and the specialization that goes with professionalization. When you professionalize, you undergo a certain kind of process and set of protocols where you can become a master and the victim of it simultaneously. Whereas when you bear witness, you got your whole heart, mind, soul, body, memory, history, and you put it into what you're doing. For you, as teachers, as pedagogical figures, to bear witness means putting your whole self into it, whereas as a professional it's nice to have your data, your argument, your evidence, and so forth, and to be connected to others who do that. That's fine. That's the skill that you're passing on. But the skill doesn't necessarily manifest itself in the whole self put into the student. So that you're not just passing on the skill to the student, but the student is seeing an example of a person of honesty, integrity, and having a calling. And a vocation. You see, there's no vocation without invocation and provocation. And there's no calling without recalling. And we come from a tradition, Black folks, where our anthem is "Lift Every...