Roland Martin: 'The Election of President Obama Has Made Black Folks Act Like They Stuck on Stupid'

On the “Tom Joyner Morning Show,” TVOne host Roland Martin discussed recent public fights between prominent African-American intellectuals

Partial transcript as follows:

MARTIN: You know, Fannie Lou Hamer said I’m sick and tired of being sick and tired. And you know what, Tom? I’m sick and tired of these damn black public intellectuals constantly involved in a pissing match with each other. First you have Dr. Cornell West, he’s criticizing Dr. Michael Eric Dyson and Dr.Melissa Harris Parry, and then Dr. Dyson, he comes back, and he’s criticizing Cornell West and talking about ego. Then people hitting me on Twitter to see what Professor Eddie Glaude had to say about Dyson and the rest of them. And I wish all of them would shut up and be quiet and focus on really what’s happening in black America.

For some reason the election of President Obama has made black folks act like they stuck on stupid that somehow we cannot offer real critiques based upon public policy. But for some reason it’s always personal. Is this a personal attack? An attack on him? An attack on each other? Yet when you look at what is hurting black America, Tom, the results are real.

When you talk about what’s happening with black unemployment, black teen unemployment, we’re talking about; we lost 53% of black wealth due to the home foreclosure crisis. When you talk about what’s going on with black businesses all of these things are happening, but for some reason we have this inability to have a grown up conversation and we have so called educated multiple degreed black public intellectuals acting like black kids are on the playground who don’t know how to behave with one another. The real deal is this. Yes, we have the first black president, but he’s also the 44th president of the United States. And just like African Americans have the ability to put forth public policy and offer real critiques when it came to Bush, Clinton, Bush, Reagan, go down the line, to Carter, to Ford, To Nixon, to Johnson, to Kennedy and go on and on and on and it’s always been the case. But for some reason we don’t know how to act now.

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