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The Glenn Show

Cornel West – The Black Intellectual in a Declining Empire

The Glenn Show

Glenn Loury

Politics, Society & Culture, News

4.82.3K Ratings

🗓️ 25 July 2025

⏱️ 62 minutes

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

Support The Glenn Show at https://glennloury.substack.com

Video Links

0:00 Glenn and Cornel’s early correspondence

2:20 Cornel: “Brother Glenn ain’t never been just a black conservative”

9:34 Ground News ad

11:10 One-eyed and two-eyed reason

19:33 The Loury family legacy

25:01 Does race still matter?

34:32 The black intellectual in a declining empire

45:56 Keeping nihilism at bay in the black community

51:42 Keep the funk, and die with a smile on your face

55:40 The Democratic Party plantation

Recorded July 18, 2025

Links and Readings

Glenn’s memoir, Late Admissions: Confessions of a Black Conservative

Toni Morrison’s book, The Source of Self-Regard: Selected Essays, Speeches, and Meditations

Ralph Ellison’s book, Shadow and Act

Thomas Sowell’s book, The Conflict of Visions: Ideological Origins of Political Struggle

Cornel’s book, Race Matters

Ta-Nehisi Coates’s book, The Message

Cornel’s book, Democracy Matters: Winning the Fight against Imperialism

Ta-Nehisi Coates’s book, We Were Eight Years in Power: An American Tragedy

Coleman Hughes’s book, The End of Race Politics: Arguments for a Colorblind America

Mahalia Jackson’s rendition of Clara Ward’s, “How I Got Over”

John Coltrane’s album, A Love Supreme

Niall Ferguson’s book, Colossus: The Rise and Fall of the American Empire

Glenn’s book, Race, Incarceration, and American Values

Fyodor Dostoevsky’s novel, The Brother’s Karamazov

Joseph Conrad’s novel, Victory: An Island Tale

Cornel’s 2024 Gifford Lectures



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Transcript

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0:00.0

Please consider becoming a paid subscriber to the Glenn Show at glenlawry.substack.com.

0:06.6

As a subscriber, you will receive new episodes on Mondays instead of Fridays and get access to ticket pre-sales to live events, monthly Q&As with Glenn Laurie and John McWhorter, exclusive content, and other benefits. Thank you.

0:23.5

Well, hello everybody. This is Glenn Lowry. This is the Glenn Show that you've tuned into.

0:27.7

And I am joined this week by Dr. Corno West, Corno West, who is the Dietrich Bonhoeffer, professor

0:35.3

of philosophy and Christian practice at the Union Theological Seminary

0:40.4

in his renowned public intellectual and very widely published author and personality and an

0:45.7

activist and a friend, someone I've known for a long time who has graced us with his presence

0:50.9

here at the Glenshow. Welcome, Cornell, and thank you.

0:57.4

My brother, it's just a blessing to set eyes on you.

1:02.1

I just count my blessings and think back almost 45 years when we first really encountered each other.

1:05.1

I remember you sending me these magnificent, long, long reflections

1:09.9

at Yale in early 80s. I think he must have been probably

1:14.1

already tenured at Harvard at that time in 33. But we would go back and forth, back and forth.

1:20.8

And the first thing that struck me was twofold. One was, boy, this brother is a brilliant

1:26.4

brother who's wrestling with some serious ideas, intellectually fundamentally committed to the life of the mind, but also dead up from the south side of Chicago.

1:37.0

I didn't know 7329 South Michigan Avenue.

1:40.4

Listen, he knows the address of the house I grew up in.

1:43.9

7329 South Michigan.

1:45.5

Oh, my late auntie and Lois would be so pleased to hear you say that, man.

1:50.6

Well, brother, your classic text begins in her living room.

1:54.4

She's examining you about Pastor Bob's sermons at Bethel A.M.

1:59.5

Church, man.

...

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