After the weekend of America’s 250th, I wanted to sit down with someone who could do more than celebrate or condemn our nation. The 250th birthday of this country feels like a moment that demands genuine and serious reflection, and when I thought about who I most wanted to have that conversation with, the name Cornel West kept coming up. I’ve known Dr. West for a few years, and what strikes me every time we speak is that he is exactly who he appears to be. There is no gap between the public figure and the private man. He has spent his entire life thinking seriously about America’s promise and America’s failures, and he brings to that project a combination of philosophical rigor, moral seriousness, and genuine warmth that is pretty rare. We talked about how to teach American history honestly without tipping into either triumphalism or cynicism; whether slavery and indigenous dispossession were preconditions for American prosperity or something more complicated than that; what the decline of religion has done to American civic life; and what it felt like for him to run for president. We also got into the Drake versus Kendrick beef. When it comes to Cornel West, you take the conversation where it goes. Cornel West