Speaker 1: Mary Jay's got a she got a serious body of work.
Speaker 1: Uh and uh, she got hits.
Speaker 2: But this is one of the funkiest hits that Mary
Speaker 2: Jay's ever put out.
Speaker 1: I love this track.
Speaker 3: Uh.
Speaker 2: Doctor West is here at Corneill West every Monday and Thursday,
Speaker 2: top of second hour. I never know what his walk
Speaker 2: on song's gonna be, but I did not see Mary
Speaker 2: j coming today, Doctor.
Speaker 3: West, Well, brother, I tell you were living in the
Speaker 3: moment with us open season on the fineness of black people.
Speaker 3: And we have to be able to revel in our callings,
Speaker 3: revel in our prophetic utterance and witness, not in the
Speaker 3: spirit of self righteousness, but in the spirit of recognizing
Speaker 3: that the fineness will be under attacked. And listen to you.
Speaker 3: I just read that letter of the City Council president.
Speaker 3: It's week and three week boolid. It's pathetic, and it's
Speaker 3: nothing but a count It's nothing but an attack on
Speaker 3: somebody who's trying to raise the issue or the suffering
Speaker 3: other people. How can raising issue the sefing other people
Speaker 3: be profaned? How can raising issues of the sefing other
Speaker 3: people reviewed as a white supremacist attack on him? Please,
Speaker 3: he's got to get off the crack pipe. Now we
Speaker 3: pray for the brother, but he's not one of our
Speaker 3: finests at all. Where's his words about Mark really Thomas?
Speaker 3: Mark really Thomas is one of our finest. Where's his
Speaker 3: words in support of our finest crickets. We hardly hear
Speaker 3: a words from the brother so in that sense, and
Speaker 3: this is true even with our dear brother Jason there,
Speaker 3: and we'll talk about that as well in Cambridge. You
Speaker 3: know that we pray for his family, but he's not
Speaker 3: one of our finest either. But open season means in
Speaker 3: fact that he's still viciously attacked. We defend against that
Speaker 3: vicious attack, but he was never one of our finest.
Speaker 3: To be professor ed Kim, but it's not at all,
Speaker 3: not at all. That was a manipulation by the white
Speaker 3: liberals that bring in folk Court. Not part of our
Speaker 3: finance in that regard, and we have to lift up
Speaker 3: our finest as you as Mark really Thomas. The politicians,
Speaker 3: for example, people think Obama's Martin, Luther, King James, you know,
Speaker 3: get off the crack pipe. Martin is one of our finests.
Speaker 3: Obama's a fine politician. It's a whole different level. We
Speaker 3: have to keep our standards up and descend at the
Speaker 3: highest level of our energy, our finest and this is
Speaker 3: something that I'm going to my grade defending the finest,
Speaker 3: not that you or Mark or Martin. People say Kamala
Speaker 3: Harris is s Fanny lou Hayman's get off the crack pipe. No,
Speaker 3: Kamala Kamala Harris is not one of our finests. She's
Speaker 3: a mediocre politician who is very clever to do X
Speaker 3: and Y. We have to keep our standards up, and
Speaker 3: that's why we appreciate Mary Jay because Mary Jay is
Speaker 3: one of our artistically oriented finest ones of her generation.
Speaker 3: But she knows even she has to bow down to
Speaker 3: Sarah Vaughan, to Billy Holliday, to a Refa Franklin, to
Speaker 3: my Hey Jackson. We love Mary Jay. She understands one
Speaker 3: of our finests keeping up the greatest standards that we have.
Speaker 2: Doctor West has set the frame when we come forward
Speaker 2: after a little more married Jay, I've got some questions
Speaker 2: for him. And in case you are not up to
Speaker 2: speed on this letter, he referenced that Markquise Harris Dawson,
Speaker 2: President La City Council, released on Friday. We'll talk about that.
Speaker 2: We are just about today to demand an apology from him.
Speaker 2: We're about to push this out momentarily demanding an apology
Speaker 2: from Marc Cuise Harris Dawson, what he said, the way
Speaker 2: he insulted and tried to gas light this community. We'll
Speaker 2: talk about that. It's a local issue, but it has
Speaker 2: national residents, I think, and we'll talk about, of course
Speaker 2: Jason our day. Doctor West mentions him the professor in
Speaker 2: Cambridge who was harassed so much that he killed himself. Great,
Speaker 2: you want to talk about Corneill West when we come
Speaker 2: forward here, I'm Tavis Smile, Cornell West, Glad he's here.
Speaker 2: And so he has raised two issues and we got
Speaker 2: a good almost twenty minutes here. We have some timer
Speaker 2: to unpack these two issues he has raised. His theme,
Speaker 2: his frame, essentially is that we have always seen and
Speaker 2: always will see the finest in our community under attack.
Speaker 1: And there's no doubt about that.
Speaker 2: And yet I said in one of my prior editorials
Speaker 2: on our station here in LA that it bothers me
Speaker 2: when certain black electeds hide behind their identity, their blackness,
Speaker 2: to avoid scrutiny.
Speaker 1: They hide behind their identity, I.
Speaker 2: Opined earlier, to avoid scrutiny, I don't like that because
Speaker 2: you black domain, you get a pass on being held accountable.
Speaker 2: And I don't like it when people play these Jedi
Speaker 2: mind tricks. I don't like it when they insult us.
Speaker 2: I don't like it when they gas light us. And again,
Speaker 2: for those in Los Angeles, you've been hearing for months now,
Speaker 2: actually us talking about what we call pro Destination Crenshaw.
Speaker 2: They call it Destination Crenshaw. This one point three mile
Speaker 2: corridor right in the heart of the black community in
Speaker 2: the Crenshaw District that is years behind schedule and as
Speaker 2: a result of the economic violence visited upon this community
Speaker 2: has stifled.
Speaker 1: People and choked people literally to death.
Speaker 2: They are businesses that have gone under it because they've
Speaker 2: dragged their feet so long on getting this project done.
Speaker 2: And so we have raised questions about accountability to the
Speaker 2: city council president in LA who happens to be black,
Speaker 2: also the person that represents this district.
Speaker 1: And he's all up in his feelings. He's all in
Speaker 1: his feelings.
Speaker 2: Now he's acting out in ways that are defensive that
Speaker 2: speak to his being in his feelings and his emotions.
Speaker 2: And that's not the definition of leadership. And so I
Speaker 2: guess he had enough of it, and on Friday he
Speaker 2: released a letter. The problem with the letter is again,
Speaker 2: it's full of gas lighting, it's full of insults, it's demeaning.
Speaker 2: It is grit everyday people, and we're not going to
Speaker 2: tolerate that. And so we are today in Los Angeles
Speaker 2: demanding an apology from Marquise Harris Dawson for what he
Speaker 2: said in this letter the other day. He lost his mind,
Speaker 2: lost his ever loving mind. Let me just read a
Speaker 2: couple of paragraphs, and this is what doctor West was
Speaker 2: essentially referencing. He mentioned he's read the letter. So first
Speaker 2: of all, in this letter, he takes credit for stuff
Speaker 2: he ain't done. Anybody seen Marquise Harris Dawson. You've seen
Speaker 2: the photos, You've seen the video we posted. When Karen Bash,
Speaker 2: the mayor, came to the Crenshaw Corridor, she walked the
Speaker 2: corridor with me and other stakeholders. We told her what
Speaker 2: needed to be done. She went to work. Marquise details
Speaker 2: all these things in his letter, but then acts like
Speaker 2: he did. So he's taking credit for work he didn't do.
Speaker 2: He didn't come to the town hall, he didn't come
Speaker 2: with Karen Bass when we walked the corridor. But in
Speaker 2: his letter he's acting like he in Destination Crenshaw did
Speaker 2: the work, stopping lying Marquise, you're lying, you ain't shown up,
Speaker 2: you ain't done no work, and taking credit for it
Speaker 2: in this letter. That's the definition of gas lighting. That's
Speaker 2: what he does in this letter. Then secondly he calls
Speaker 2: taking down the gates and the fences and the barricades,
Speaker 2: et cetera, giving back to parking. He calls that progress.
Speaker 2: No negro, that ain't progress. We back to square one.
Speaker 2: Remediation is not progress if we want to see progress
Speaker 2: on Destination Crenshaw, but we're back to where we started,
Speaker 2: so that's not progress. But then he says the following,
Speaker 2: and I want to quote now that doctor West do
Speaker 2: what he does. The two progress I want to read
Speaker 2: right quick, and then we'll move to Dr Wes commentary
Speaker 2: about Jason Arda. He says, I have to address the
Speaker 2: false claims directly. He's going after Cornell West here trust
Speaker 2: and believe he doesn't call it him by name, but
Speaker 2: if you recall the town hall what doctor West say he's.
Speaker 1: Going to after Cornaill West directly.
Speaker 2: I have to address the false claims directly, unsubstantiated accusations
Speaker 2: of corruption have been leveled at me and at this project,
Speaker 2: without a shred of evidence, in a moment of rising bigotry.
Speaker 2: Hurling baseless corruption charges at blackedected officials and community leaders
Speaker 2: is not just wrong, it is dangerous. We've seen firsthand
Speaker 2: how accusations are used to stifle progress, feed into the
Speaker 2: white supremacist desire to incarcerate black leaders, and how it
Speaker 2: not only harms the target but the whole community. I
Speaker 2: watched every minute of the recent town hall at Bethesda
Speaker 2: Temple Church, and I found it especially profane that a
Speaker 2: church sanctuary would be used as the backdrop for such
Speaker 2: lies and incendiary accusations. So, doctor West, he's calling you
Speaker 2: and me liars, he says incendiary accusations. He's calling the
Speaker 2: gathering at this black church this sacred space. He's calling
Speaker 2: that gathering and those who were involved in it pro
Speaker 2: And he says that we have leveled unsubstantiated accusations of
Speaker 2: corruption against him. And the part that really just just
Speaker 2: irks me is suggesting that because we are raising questions
Speaker 2: of accountability about him, that we are somehow advancing some
Speaker 2: white supremacist agenda of attacking Black leaders.
Speaker 1: This negro has lost his mind.
Speaker 3: He's lost his mind, he really has. He stands in
Speaker 3: deepney the prayer. But the first thing he needs to
Speaker 3: do is make a B line too. But there's the
Speaker 3: temple and apologize to Reverend Shorter. The Black freedom movement
Speaker 3: has been predicated and this city council president knows this.
Speaker 3: He went to more House. He wrote a thesis on
Speaker 3: the Great Mark Ridley Thomas's empowerment program. Can you imagine
Speaker 3: somebody writing a thesis on the empowerment Mark. Really, Thomas's
Speaker 3: project has been predicated on a profound respect and love
Speaker 3: for black people. But when you then have a church
Speaker 3: under the able leadership of Reverend Shorter that comes together,
Speaker 3: and what does it do? We start in prayer, we say,
Speaker 3: this is not about any love, This is not about
Speaker 3: personal attacks. You mentioned that in your speech. I mentioned
Speaker 3: that in my speech. And what did we say? I said,
Speaker 3: there are three options in terms of the present suffering
Speaker 3: of the people of Limbert Park Lahmer Park. One either incompetence.
Speaker 3: We're saying to the city council president and others, including
Speaker 3: the mayor at that point, this is underperformance of black leadership.
Speaker 3: This is lack of execution and followed through. You don't
Speaker 3: have precious people locked into a situation for five years,
Speaker 3: and they raised their voices and you don't say anything.
Speaker 3: It was only the tenth week after you had been
Speaker 3: raising the issue that we got any kind of respond
Speaker 3: so with either incompetence or it's indifference. You really don't care.
Speaker 3: You don't give a damn about these people because they
Speaker 3: don't have enough money to sustain you and your next election.
Speaker 3: That's the second option, or the third option is corruption.
Speaker 3: It could be any one of them. That's not an
Speaker 3: accusation of corruption. That's an articulation of an option. Now,
Speaker 3: the fact that he went directly to corruption, I said,
Speaker 3: oh good, you're gonna have to work with having himself.
Speaker 3: That's got nothing to do with you. Ain't got nothing
Speaker 3: do with me, Ain't got nothing do with nobody else.
Speaker 3: He gonna have to work with that. But any time, though,
Speaker 3: Brother Tavish, you view people raising their voices because they're
Speaker 3: suffering as an occasion of profanity, reflects such a contempt
Speaker 3: for those people. He ought to be ashamed of himself
Speaker 3: to call himself a leader, let alone a black leader.
Speaker 1: That's the right word. That's the road of the day.
Speaker 2: I sense in what he had to say a contempt
Speaker 2: for black people, and that that's hard to swallow when
Speaker 2: you have a contempt for people raising their voices when
Speaker 2: you have underperformed, when you underperformed.
Speaker 3: Absolutely absolutely, But this is not though, Tavis. There is
Speaker 3: a history of black folk who talk one game, but
Speaker 3: in the end have a contempt for the people on
Speaker 3: the ground because it's all about something else. I don't
Speaker 3: know now he'll accuse you and I have just personal
Speaker 3: interest and personal ambition. We're doing all of this based
Speaker 3: on personal ambition. Why because they figure Tavis Smiley wants
Speaker 3: to be the next mayor of la Please get off
Speaker 3: the track.
Speaker 1: Let me read since you read there, just let me
Speaker 1: read this particular paragraph.
Speaker 2: The Doctor's reverends can now Marquise Heir's president City Council
Speaker 2: writes this in his letter to the public, and I quote,
Speaker 2: it's no secret who's behind these recent and dubious attempts
Speaker 2: to sow division, and they are willing to put their
Speaker 2: personal interest and ambitions above those of the community they
Speaker 2: purport to represent.
Speaker 1: Close quote. I don't know what.
Speaker 2: Personal ambition he's talking about. On my part, I'm not
Speaker 2: running for city council. I'm not trying to be the
Speaker 2: mayor of this city. I got my hands full with
Speaker 2: this radio station and everything else I'm trying to do.
Speaker 2: But when he leans in to personal interest and ambitions
Speaker 2: as a way to try to push back on doctor West,
Speaker 2: critiku and MI critique and frankly not just calling the
Speaker 2: Western Tabismley, there were hundreds of people packed in this
Speaker 2: church and you've been hearing, you've been hearing on our
Speaker 2: local station here the voices of fifteen or twenty of
Speaker 2: those people that we run every hour. We wanted to
Speaker 2: be clear in case you missed the town all that
Speaker 2: there were people that got to the microphone and spoke
Speaker 2: their truth.
Speaker 1: It's not about tap.
Speaker 2: This is not a personal squabble up with Marquise Harris Dawson,
Speaker 2: Tavis Smiley, Cornell West to anybody else. It's about being
Speaker 2: held accountable to what you told the people you are
Speaker 2: going to deliver. So then to be all to go
Speaker 2: lowbrow with it and to act as if this is
Speaker 2: about some personal interest and ambition, that's just sick to me.
Speaker 3: Doc, it is, and I just think that you know
Speaker 3: the brother's on his way out. We're gonna have to
Speaker 3: pray for him. He's gonna have to repent sometime down
Speaker 3: the line, because he knows deep down in his heart
Speaker 3: and soul that you can't just treat the people this
Speaker 3: way and be silent, and then in the end when
Speaker 3: somebody makes you accountable, all of a sudden, now you
Speaker 3: become one of those who are being targeted by white supremacy.
Speaker 3: There are many black people who are being targeted by
Speaker 3: white supremacist forces. There's no doubt about that. The black
Speaker 3: people keeping him accountable is not part of that open
Speaker 3: sea in activity. And if he can't see that distinction,
Speaker 3: then he thinks that everyday people in Los Angeles, especially
Speaker 3: black folk, are just blind sheep and gonna listen to
Speaker 3: anything he writes and says and follow him. Those days
Speaker 3: are long, long, long over, long, long long over. You
Speaker 3: got to grow up, You got to be mature. We
Speaker 3: got enough mess to be dealing with with the neo
Speaker 3: fascists in Washington, and these too often these neoliberals who
Speaker 3: continue to act like they support us, but as soon
Speaker 3: as things get hot, like the shift from George Floyd
Speaker 3: moment to the Antidei moment, look at three hundred and
Speaker 3: fifty thousand black women being targeted. That's open season on
Speaker 3: black folks. They lost their job well the Merk Park
Speaker 3: Black folk in some sense have been targeted by the
Speaker 3: disrespect and contempt in terms of how they've been treated
Speaker 3: for five years. And this is all he can come
Speaker 3: up with it attack you and I and others. Please heya,
Speaker 3: no grow up is right.
Speaker 2: This letter is on our website at KBLA fifteen eighty
Speaker 2: dot com for those listening around the country and the
Speaker 2: city who haven't read the letter from Marquise Heris Tawson
Speaker 2: City Council President. It's worth reading for yourself. Don't take
Speaker 2: my word for it, don't take dot's word for It's
Speaker 2: on our website right now on the homepage. You can't
Speaker 2: miss it KBLA fifteen eighty dot com. He knows because
Speaker 2: we keep reminding you if he has until September the
Speaker 2: fourth the city does to respond to the demands made
Speaker 2: by the community in the letter we sent them on
Speaker 2: August to fifth.
Speaker 1: Is our recalls. They've got into a September fourth.
Speaker 2: Friday to respond in detail that the demands made by
Speaker 2: this community. We will see what happens on September fourth.
Speaker 2: And people keep asking me what happens if they don't respond,
Speaker 2: don't respond appropriately, And my answer is very simply, stay tuned.
Speaker 1: That's all I can tell you about Ted.
Speaker 2: I've got three minutes left, Doc, let's let's I'm sorry.
Speaker 3: Our finers like Mark Really Thomas is targeted and he's
Speaker 3: talking about the charge of the corruption and incarceration. Mark
Speaker 3: Really Thomas is an innocent man who's been targeted. Where's
Speaker 3: your boy City Council President?
Speaker 2: And for that matter, you know I don't need to
Speaker 2: It's not about beating my chest. But what this station
Speaker 2: has done locally is to defend standing the gap for
Speaker 2: Mark Whody Thomas. We've also done the same thing for
Speaker 2: same thing for current price. So you can't accuse us
Speaker 2: of running a white experiencist agenda. But we're the only
Speaker 2: media outlet in town who's standing firm behind the black
Speaker 2: electors who are being falsely accused.
Speaker 1: So I'll leave that where it is.
Speaker 2: I've got too many left to go, Doc, say a
Speaker 2: word then again to your point about our finance being targeted,
Speaker 2: about brother Jason and the ways in which he was
Speaker 2: so harassed and so targeted that brother took his own life.
Speaker 3: Yeah, yeah, Well it's a sad situation. You know, when
Speaker 3: he was up for the job, there were two black
Speaker 3: women who were really superb scholars, and the white advisory
Speaker 3: board chose Brothers Jason, and it turned out that Jason
Speaker 3: was not honest. It turns out that he was not
Speaker 3: telling the full truth about his history and so forth.
Speaker 3: He's a very wonderful human being, he's a sensitive human being,
Speaker 3: he's a kind human being, but he was not up
Speaker 3: for that job. When it comes to the kind of
Speaker 3: academic qualification, they're a whole wave of black people who
Speaker 3: meet the academic qualification, there's no doubt about that. But
Speaker 3: then when it came down so hard on him, the
Speaker 3: British press, especially the establishment, did it express a white
Speaker 3: supremacist contempt for not just him, but Black people as
Speaker 3: a whole, as a whole, And then you've got Nathan
Speaker 3: and the others. Of course, that's the white brother, the
Speaker 3: Jewish brother who believes in rape science, who believes that
Speaker 3: Harvard would have zero professors if it were based on merit,
Speaker 3: and Harvard would not have hardly any students if it
Speaker 3: was based on merit. What do they mean by merit?
Speaker 3: When was merit ever fully operative? In knee way, so
Speaker 3: that he believes in superstition. That's what rape science says.
Speaker 3: You might as well believe in Unicorn's defense war. But
Speaker 3: he's professor great science, so let him have his superstitious
Speaker 3: He's the one who was responsible for bringing exposing Jason,
Speaker 3: but Jason himself was open to this kind of exposure.
Speaker 3: We have black quaalter flight academics who could teach a Cambridge, Oxford,
Speaker 3: any city college, any state college, any university across the board.
Speaker 3: You I'll begin with my Alna Korenga, my dear brother
Speaker 3: who's been sitting out there doing magnificent work too often
Speaker 3: overlook major major boys. We got a whole lot of
Speaker 3: black scholars out there.
Speaker 2: He Jason already, of course, is now dead. And the
Speaker 2: news about Nathan Jolas and Nathan Conference, who doctor Wes
Speaker 2: just mentioned, who brought these allegations against brother Jason. He
Speaker 2: has now been suspended by his university. So this thing
Speaker 2: ain't end well for nobody. Jason is deceased and the
Speaker 2: white brother Nathan Conference cognast has now been suspended by
Speaker 2: his institution. So this story continues to develop. But our
Speaker 2: thoughts and prayers go to brother Jason.
Speaker 1: And his family.
Speaker 2: Doctor west Uh, it's always you you. You bring it
Speaker 2: every Monday and Thursday. I thank you for what I
Speaker 2: love you man, Thanks for your time.
Speaker 3: Love you, Love you brother, Stay strong man.
Speaker 1: More tablished by When We Come Forward