Tavis Smiley and Cornel West Stand Up to Bill O’Reilly

The two were on the show to discuss their poverty tour and presumably put O'Reilly in check.

By Jorge Rivas Oct 12, 2011

Radio host Tavis Smiley and Professor Cornel West were guests on Tuesday’s Bill O’Reilly show, where the two discussed poverty in the United States, the Occupy Wall Street movement and Herman Cain.

O’Reilly quickly dove into his flawed math and alleged that many unemployed people are also substance abusers. He went on to accuse West and Smiley of supporting socialist ideals. Everybody called each other a liar at one point, with West saying, "Everybody lies. Bill, you lie, too, brother," after O’Reilly said he doesn’t lie.

Two memorable quotes:

Smiley after O’Reilly calls Occupy Wall Street movement socialist:

Three things. No. 1, it wasn’t socialism apparently when we bailed out the banks in the first place. That pretty much fits a textbook definition of socialism what we did for the banks that you don’t want to acknowledge, no. 1.

No. 2, you’re right about the fact that Stanley O’Neal respectfully should have been chased down the sidewalk. He should be asked to account which raises a couple of questions.

West on Herman Cain:

First, Herman Cain, when he says racism is not leaving anybody back as if indigenous people, as if the immigration laws to brown brothers and sisters, as if the stop and frisk policy in New York — 600,000 young people stopped, 83 percent black and brown, 2 percent are arrested. That’s a small example. So then in that sense for you to say somehow that it’s personalizing allows both him but also you, Brother Bill, to trivialize the suffering that’s out there. And that’s what I’ve said. Brother Tavis and I think about it. It trivializes the suffering that’s out there.

It’s a long two-part segment but it’s worth watching to see two smart men standing up to O’Reily.