'Obama is black mascot of Wall Street,' claims university professor in bitter attack on president

Harsh words: Professor Cornell West, seen here with then-senator Barack Obama on the campaign trail in New York, has turned on the president


A leading African American intellectual has reversed his support for Barack Obama, calling the U.S. president 'a black mascot of Wall street'.
Cornel West, a professor at Princeton University's Center for African American Studies, had previously supported Obama and took part in 65 campaign events during the president's election year.
But in an interview that with the website Truthdig, West attacked the president for not being true to his race and dismissed him as 'a black mascot of Wall Street oligarchs and a black puppet of corporate plutocrats.'

West also said: 'I think my dear brother Barack Obama has a certain fear of free black men.
'It’s understandable. As a young brother who grows up in a white context, brilliant African father, he’s always had to fear being a white man with black skin.
'All he has known culturally is white… When he meets an independent black brother, it is frightening.'
The White House is yet to react to the criticism.
West's comments are a counterpoint to those of the media mogul and presidential hopeful Donald trump, who repeatedly pressured Obama to produce his birth certificate in the 'birther's' row.
The birther movement continue to try to show Obama isn't American enough to be president, while West is now seemingly claiming Obama isn't black enough for his liking.


It's personal: Professor West admitted he feels slighted by the president

West has previously made similar, if less powerful, comments about Obama. In an interview last year with NPR he said he would rather the president were more 'Martin Luther King-like', invoking the name of the most revered civil rights leader.
To answer Trump and the 'birthers', Obama did indeed produce his long-form birth certificate, proving he was born on U.S. soil in Hawaii.
But West's criticism may be harder to refute among black voters.
West, author of the book Race Matters, has a history of being quarrelsome though.
He was formerly a professor at Harvard University but left the institution in 2002 after an argument with its then-president Lawrence Summers.
In the interview with Truthdig he says he feels betrayed on an ideological level but also admits that his motivation for attacking Obama is in part due to personal enmity.
He complained that his phone calls to Obama did not get returned and that he wasn't invited to attend the presidential inauguration, which he watched in a hotel room with his mother and brother.
West said the pair have not spoken in more than a year after West claims Obama gave him a public dressing down at a meeting of the Urban League.