An evening with Dr. Cornel West

Last week a meeting with a donor led me to Susan’s Liquors. I hadn’t been there before but kept hearing about the patio,  how the patio is a great spot to have a drink as the weather gets nicer in Santa Fe

I walk in, and immediately I see Ron.

The homie.

One of those people I love running into but somehow it never happens enough. Ron is dope. Well-traveled, sharp, a professor at St. John's College, and always carrying this mix of joy and curiosity that feels real.

“Yooooooooo.”

We see each other and it’s instant. Embrace, laughter, that energy. And pretty quickly, the room shifts. Because in this environment, and honestly a lot of Santa Fe, two Black men greeting each other with real joy and presence becomes… a thing. A spectacle. I feel the eyes. I start to shrink a little, my usual move.

But nah.

Ron does the opposite.

He gets bigger. Louder. More.

“I was just thinking about you. I was gonna reach out. I got Cornel West coming next Friday! You gotta come.”

Wait. What!!!?

We go back and forth, catching up, laughing. He tells me he’ll send the details, get me set up. We  give each other Black man appreciations, handshakes, hugs and knowing looks and each retreat back into our worlds with our peoples.

Last night, I saw Dr. Cornel West.

He’s both bigger and smaller than I expected.

I’ve known him from afar. Reputation, Books, YouTube panels, conversations. But being in the room was different. He softened something in me immediately. Not even because I fully grasp his resume, (though it’s wildly impressive), but because he’s an elder Black man who made it through. From a time where many didn’t... And he’s still here. Thinking, speaking, being...

That alone.

He walks in, and the first thing I notice is his smile. It feels real. I’m pretty good at spotting a fake one and his doesn’t set anything off. There’s a genuineness and warmth to it.

Ron gives a beautiful introduction, and then Dr. West steps up to the podium.

(Which, by the way, is just a few feet from me. Ron really looked out :)

Before I even get into what he said, let me pause on the room.

This is St. John’s. (Not where DMC from Run-DMC went, “I’m DMC in the place to be I went to St. Johns University”...). This is a place where people go to think. Like really think. They study the classics, philosophy, deep questioning, getting your whole perspective turned inside out. (From their website “At the heart of St. John’s is a liberal arts curriculum focused on reading and discussing many of the greatest books and most important questions in history. This is perhaps the most distinctive undergraduate curriculum of any college in America”)

The room is mostly students and faculty. Maybe a few donors sprinkled in. About 90% white, a mix of international students..

Dr. West starts speaking and at first I’m like, okay, this is the intro, hes thanking people, referencing folks in the audience but then it just keeps flowing. And I realize, oh… we’re already in it. No notes. No pause. No checking anything just a continuous stream of thought, and as a performer, I’m scanning. Where are the cues? How is he structuring this? How does he know what’s next?

Nothing. Just mastery. And not in a flashy way but in a lived way.

His mind is beautiful. That’s the only word I have. Especially sitting there thinking about my dad, about aging, about how fragile memory can be. And here’s this elder, not just remembering, but weaving. Pulling language together in a way that feels musical (he references the Blues throughout), precise, alive. And the language, this is the part that really hit me because I’ve had a complicated relationship with academia, with the English language, with institutions. I’ve tied them to systems that feel distant, extractive, rooted in things I don’t always align with like capital;ism or white supremacy. I don't know if I can fully explain it but I've definitely fully felt it.

But he used all of that. And it didn’t feel like that. It didn’t feel white, or academic or cold or removed. It didn’t feel like he was trying to prove anything. It felt like love. Like care. Like someone who has studied deeply and is offering it back in a way that invites you in instead of pushing you out.

For almost two hours, he just went.

Through ideas, history, philosophy, spirit. No breaks. No drop in energy. Just presence.And sitting there, a few feet away, watching an elder Black man not just surviving but thriving in his brilliance, I realized how rare that is for me to witness.

How much I needed that. Inspired to be a thinker. Not just moving, producing, building, but really sitting with ideas. Wrestling with them. Living inside them long enough to speak from that place.

I walked out like… I need to go think..