Princeton professor and famed black intellectual Cornel West has long been a supporter of President Barack Obama, but he’s recently changed his tune.

In an interview last week, he suggested that Obama has sold out and become “a puppet” of powerful interests, merely promising change and not delivering. West warned that this would trust the U.S. into a “democratic awakening” the likes of which the nation had not seen in decades.

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Appearing on an MSNBC panel recently, West remained outspoken.

Amid a very heated discussion of whether President Obama is doing enough for black people in America, he called the president “another black mascot” of “Wall Street oligarchs.” This made civil rights activist Al Sharpton extremely unhappy and the discussion essentially disintegrated from there.

This video is from MSNBC, broadcast Sunday, April 10, 2011.

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