Is the public intellectual a thing of the past? What do I think of Cornel West?

Yesterday, Dorian Warren had me, Johns Hopkins political scientist Lester Spence, and New Republic editor Jamil Smith on Dorian’s MSNBC show, Nerding Out, to discuss public intellectuals, black politics, and Michael Eric Dyson’s recent critique of Cornel West in The New Republic, which has attracted a lot of attention on social media. I was brought onto the show in the third segment to talk more generally about public intellectuals, whether they were a thing of the past or not, but I did briefly share my own thoughts about Cornel West and his contributions to the culture.

Here is the entire show, in three segments; as I said, I appear in the third.