Clutch magazine blogger Thembi Ford tackles Princeton professor Cornel West's attacks on Tulane professor Melissa Harris-Perry and determines that he appears to suffer from a crabs-in-a-barrel mentality. Ford says it's a shame because there should be room for dissent among black intelligentsia without resorting to insults.

... In a recent interview with Diverse Issues in Higher Education magazine, West said of Perry:

“I have a love for the sister, but she is a liar, and I hate lying … she’s become the momentary darling of the liberals, but I pray for her because she’s in over her head. She’s a fake and a fraud. I was so surprised how treacherous the sister was.”

Treacherous? Cornel West has always had a flair for hyperbole, but really?

His claim stems from his belief that she does not speak for the best interests of black America and instead is a liberal plant, put in place to pacify us and mainstream our thinking. He and Tavis Smiley, talk show host and his partner in the “Poverty Tour,” have spoken out many times against Barack Obama and the ways in which he enables economic oppression. Melissa Harris-Perry has been supportive of the administration, also departing from the West-Smiley agenda in that she expresses a more modern, feminist viewpoint.

Read Thembi Ford's entire blog entry at Clutch magazine.

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