Cornel West: Dem Race-Baiting Ads ‘Wrong,’ Slams GOP

Cornel West: Dem Race-Baiting Ads ‘Wrong,’ Slams GOP

Dr. Cornel West criticized recent ads supporting Democratic Senate candidates for recent advertisements evoking Ferguson and lynchings to try and turn out the black vote, while also criticizing the Republican Party for what he said was a racist strategy on its part on Wednesday’s “Hannity” on the Fox News Channel.

“It’s wrong,” West said of mailers in Georgia that referenced the events in Ferguson and fliers in North Carolina that used a picture of a lynching.  He added, “but there’s no doubt, I think black brothers and sisters will vote disproportionately for a Democratic Party because they still see in the Republican Party too many folk who when they talk about black people it’s a matter of black people themselves bearing all the responsibility, or most responsibility as opposed to some of the societal institutions.”

West also stated, “I think as you know, I have a disgust in some ways with both parties. The Republican Party has always struck me as too mean-spirited when it comes to attitudes towards the poor, and the Democratic Party’s too milquetoast, just too empty in terms of not taking a stand. But, we just have to be clear there’s one standard: stay in contact with the humanity across the board, no racist appeals, Willie Horton, Jesse Helms, [he also reference the Southern Strategy later on] we got both parties.”

He concluded, “I condemn both of them. We have to have a higher standard.”

He also spoke about the recent leaks from the grand jury investigating the shooting of Michael Brown.  West criticized the leaks, saying “they have to have a transparent process. You can’t just keep this thing under cover and then leak this and leak that. We have to have a fair trial to make sure…that the system is proceeding in a fair and just manner.”  He also declared “we all have to have a sense of integrity and simply be committed to a fair trial.”

Follow Ian Hanchett on Twitter @IanHanchett

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