Brother West (2 page)
But what does it mean to be a bluesman in the life of the mind? Like my fellow musicians, I’ve got to forge a unique style and voice that expresses my own quest for truth and love. That means following the quest wherever it leads and bearing whatever cost is required. I must break through isolated academic frameworks while, at the same time, I must build on the best of academic knowledge. I must fuel the fire of my soul so my intellectual blues can set others on fire. And most importantly, I must be a free spirit. I must unapologetically reveal my broken life as a thing of beauty.
I try to give heart to intellect by being true to the funk of living. For me, this can only be seen through the lens of the cross and realized in the light of love. This is the reason that I greet each person struggling through time and space in search of love and meaning before they die as brother or sister no matter what their color. I affirm them as brother or sister to acknowledge their human struggle and suffering. It’s not simply a greeting that Christians reserve for other Christians, or even an acknowledgement reserved for and between black people. Both are too narrow.
In a dark world, this means making pain and sorrow my constant companions as I engage in an endless quest for healing and serving others. If I can touch one person—you, holding this book right now—to examine the funk and the capacity to love in your own life so that you become more truly you at your best, then I will not have labored in vain.
So I try to fight the good fight and keep moving on. I’m flying down to Venezuela where, in Caracas, a brother is introducing me to a huge community audience as “Hurricane West.” He says, “I call the good professor Hurricane West because when the force comes through, everything and everyone is unsettled. After you feel the impact, you will never be the same.”
I’m moving on to New York to catch a few plays. I have this burning passion for Broadway theater and especially the musicals of Stephen Sondheim. I’m also going to drop by the Oak Room at the Algonquin Hotel and catch Sister Maude Maggart, one of my favorite new cabaret singers. Then on to Atlanta to catch up with Clifton Louis West, my super-talented thirty-one-year-old son, a gifted novelist, poet, and hip-hop artist, who’s also acting in a play. When he puts his mind to it, Cliff does it all. And it’ll also be wonderful to spend some time with my beautifully mild-mannered and sharp-minded grandson Kalen. I thank God for him.
Back in Princeton, back in my bedroom that is a fortress of books and records, I’m fortified by long listening sessions with the sanctified music of John Coltrane. Trane: another celestial genius whose sacred voice gives me hope. And by hope I mean bluesinflicted hope that is morally sound; hope learned and earned in the harsh realities of daily struggle; hope that remains on intimate terms with death; hope that is life-renewing and opposed to the cheap optimism of market-driven America where Disneyland is sold as heaven on earth.
Three days later I’m in Los Angeles, helping to inaugurate a black arts center. I talk about the miraculous and ongoing rebirth of a people who, inspired by their artists, preachers, teachers, actors, singers, dancers, painters, writers—bluesmen, blueswomen— have overcome the social death of slavery, the civic death of Jim Crow and Jane Crow, the psychic death of self-hatred, and the spiritual death of despair.
Back to New York for the
New York Times
Arts and Leisure Weekend, where I was interviewed by the prophetic and courageous Frank Rich. This “Political Dialogue” in which I lambasted Imperial America was televised by C-SPAN. I turned a spotlight on the Ice Age of Indifference that casts a cold eye on the least of these, the most vulnerable among us—the orphans, the elderly widows, the relatively helpless children, and goes on to embrace poor people, working people, people of color, victims of violence, domestic or international. One wants to look at the world continually through the lens of those people you want to be in solidarity with. This solidarity is manifested best by being part of activities connected to the worlds and experiences of the least of these.
On the long flight to Japan, where I’ve been invited to lecture at several universities over several weeks, I consider how deficient I am in deep knowledge about the country I’m about to visit. I’ve been on a steady diet of books on Japanese history, culture, philosophy, and religion, but there’s no doubt that I’m marked by a certain parochialism. Like everyone, I bear the limitations of the province from which I’ve emerged. And yet in Tokyo, when I respond to a question from a Japanese sister, when I say that we find out who we are on the most profoundly human level only when we stand before the dead bodies of our loved ones, the good sister breaks down. Her dad has just died. The provinces of our pasts converge. Grief binds us.
Off to New Orleans, where grief is still palpable. More talks, a college, a church. Someone asks if I’m a lapsed Christian. “Lord, no! I’m a believing Christian,” I say. “But my faith can be renewed by lapsed Christians like the author Samuel Beckett. Even as Beckett wrestles with despair, his compassion comes through, and his compassion inspires me to feel more deeply for others.”
Back to Princeton, back to Germany—I see precious Zeytun every six weeks—a quick lecture at Yale, a listening party for my new spoken word CD in L.A. I’m on Bill Maher’s
Real Time
with Mos Def and next morning I’m on the first plane out. Minneapolis for two days, North Carolina for a day.
Bluesman singing for his supper.
Bluesman born of a blues people trying to serve all people a healthy portion of no-nonsense, stick-to-your-ribs blues.
Bluesman recognizing the fact that the blues is rooted in gutbucket funk. A true bluesman commands respect but doesn’t give a damn about respectability.
Bluesman connecting on the college circuit but also working to connect with those the incomparable Sly Stone called “Everyday People” or the magnificent James Cleveland called “Ordinary People.”
Bluesman considering the nature of this new song, this attempt to explain himself—and his calling—to everyone.
“We want to get to know the real you,” says my dear brother and closest friend, Tavis Smiley. “The real Cornel.”
I admit it: I’ve never taken the time to focus on the inner dynamics of the dark precincts of my own soul. Like St. Augustine once said, I’m a mystery to myself.
“Well, explore the mystery,” says Brother Tavis. “Just tell us who you are. Just lay it out.” Where to start?
The plane’s landing in Sacramento and, praise God, I am one grateful Negro! Haven’t been home in months. Going to see Mom! Going to see my dear sisters, Cynthia and Cheryl! And going to get to witness the ordination of my hero, my beloved brother Cliff, as deacon in the church of our childhood, Shiloh Baptist. What an honor!
Sitting in the pew next to Mom, I see tears streaming from her eyes as her oldest son stands before the congregation wearing the red tie symbolizing his deaconship. It’s a beautiful thing. And sitting there, I’m experiencing a beautiful feeling. I realize that when all is said and done, I’m a Shiloh Baptist kind of brother. This is where I grew up and this is where I’ve returned. These are my roots, my righteous beginnings.
It is in this holy sanctuary, surrounded by family—those present and those gone off to Glory—that I understand where my story starts. It starts in this church.
I
CANNOT POSSIBLY CONCEIVE OF
two brothers being any closer than Cliff and Cornel West. I followed him every minute of the day from sports to music to church. He taught
me
how to read when
he
first learned how to read. The way
he
walked and talked and related to people was the way
I
wanted to walk and talk and relate to people. He was my model in every sphere of life. On the streets and in the classrooms and sanctuaries of our childhood, the West brothers were indivisible and inseparable. Cliff was my model in every sphere of life. In fact, he made history as one of the first black kindergarten students enrolled in Topeka, Kansas after the 1954 Supreme Court decision,
Brown v. Board of Education of Topeka
.
Over the Christmas holidays Cliff said, “Time for us to get baptized.” We made the decision together, two brothers on a mission.
I thought about it. Thought about how, for years, I’d been watching my daddy’s daddy, the great Reverend Clifton L. West, Sr., come to deliver guest sermons at our church. He was a pillar of strength and a man dedicated to service. For years I’d been sitting under the teaching of our own deeply loved minister, Reverend Willie P. Cooke, whose humble person-to-person pastoring could bring the most cold-blooded sinner to salvation. We decided to make Jesus our choice on Christmas Day and to be faithful unto death with baptism on New Year’s Day. We vowed to never forget it.
We never have.
I was seven, Cliff was ten. I was seized by a spirit and, owing to the gravity of the decision, trembled with joy. I decided to love my way through the darkness of the world. We decided to go under the water. Even then I had a good sense of what it meant. We were making a choice. We were choosing the kind of love represented by a Palestinian Jew named Jesus whose hypersensitivity to the sufferings of others felt real and right. A lifetime later, it still feels real and right.
My parents sat there beaming. Their boys were following the same path as their parents and their parents’ parents. Following Jesus was no small matter in the West household. I remember someone asking, “Do you have pictures of Jesus all over your house?”
“We don’t have to,” I said. “We have Jesus in our hearts.”
This declaration, made arm in arm by two young black boys in Sacramento, California, in the early days of what would be one of the bloodiest and most disturbing decades in American history, would gain momentum and meaning as their bodies grew and their minds blossomed.
Jesus Christ at the center.
Jesus Christ as model and motivator, Jesus Christ as moral instructor, Jesus Christ as source of unarmed truth and unconditional love.
But that love, no matter how powerful and life-altering, was accompanied by other emotions far less ennobling.
T
HOSE WERE YEARS WHEN
I
was called Little Ronnie—Ronald is my middle name—and for Little Ronnie rage was perhaps the main ingredient. Like morning thunder, rage came early and rained over the first part of my life. I’m not sure I can explain it entirely. Psychological theories won’t do. I’m unable to name the cause of this restless anger that led to the violent behavior marking my childhood and troubling my parents to no end.
Little Ronnie was, in short, a little gangsta. When it came to confrontations of any kind, Little Ronnie was always up for big drama. Facing the most formidable opponent, he just wouldn’t back down. As a little kid, his hands were sore from fighting. He’d take on kids older and meaner and, more often than not, he’d prevail.
What were his motives for such outlandish behavior? Hard to say. He certainly wasn’t angry at his folks. Fact is, he adored them. Mom was a schoolteacher, a remarkably energetic woman with a rare gift for teaching young children to read. She would make her mark as a legendary educator. She taught first grade, became a principal—the first black person in both roles—and when she retired, so great was her contribution that the Irene B. West Elementary School was named in her honor.
Mom was in perpetual motion, a woman of dynamic intelligence, grace, and dignity. She was a quiet storm of charitable work and extraordinary instruction. Because of her sensitivity for children, it’s no surprise that her oldest son Cliff became a model student. You might assume the same for Little Ronnie, whom she showered with endless love and affection. But I’m afraid you’d be wrong. Little Ronnie was out of control.
Dad tried his best. And Dad, the sweetest and gentlest of men, was always cool. When he entered a room, his smile lit it up. He worked at McClellan Air Force Base for thirty-six years buying and selling parts for fighter jets, and was the most popular guy on the base. He was a college grad and, as an active Alpha, was also the most popular brother in his fraternity. (Later I, too, became an Alpha man.) Everyone loved Clifton L. West, Jr.
Nothing flustered Dad, not even Little Ronnie’s rebellious antics. Like Lester Young, the poetical laid-back saxophonist who floated over the beat like an angel floating over fire, Dad never got flustered. Mom might call Dad during the day and tell him that Little Ronnie had messed up again, gone after some kid in his class for God knows what reason. Mom would put me on the phone.
“Little Ronnie,” Dad would say, “when I get home, have the strap ready.” He’d arrive home, cool as a cucumber, give Mom a kiss—“How you doin’, baby?”—and then turn to me. “Boy, when you ever gonna learn?” After the whipping, he’d hug me and say, “Hope this is the last one.” Then we’d eat dinner and he’d watch sports or his favorite shows, like
Bonanza
or
Gunsmoke
.
No, I wasn’t rebelling against Mom and I wasn’t rebelling against Dad, who headed Shiloh’s social outreach program and, along with the other fathers, like Mr. Peters, in our neighborhood, created our Little League and built our ballparks with their own hands. When it came to my parents, I harbored no anger. Then, what was it?
In second grade, our teacher was Miss Silver, a lovely woman, who simply couldn’t deal with so many bad Negroes. Little Ronnie was the baddest of the bad.
“Where’s your lunch?” kindly Miss Silver would ask my classmate Linda.
“Mama forgot to pack it,” Linda would answer.
But I saw that every single day Linda’s mama forgot to pack her daughter a lunch. That was a funky situation. Shouldn’t have been. Linda needed to eat. So when I saw Bernard strolling into the classroom, a boy big as a barn with a lunch bag stuffed with goodies, I had to jump the brother, beat him up, and give some of his food to Linda. Drove poor Miss Silver crazy.
Miss Silver, though, had it easy compared to Mrs. Yee, my teacher in the next year. I loved Mrs. Yee, but Mrs. Yee and I had the worst encounter of my childhood. Happened in 1962 when I was nine.
