Cornel West sits down with Avi Lewis for an interview covering the state of American democracy, the Obama administration, and US foreign policy including the war in Afghanistan. West, a Princeton professor of African American Studies who also records hip hop albums and provided philosophical commentary for the Matrix films, speaks on how the global recession has hit African American communities and what he sees as the need for systemic change. The conversation turns to his public feud with former Harvard president Lawrence Summers, whom West once called "the Ariel Sharon of higher education," and to the pressures building on Obama from within his own base. Lewis asks direct questions and lets West talk at length, giving him room to move from academic argument to blunt political opinion within the same answer. It is a straightforward two-person interview, shot without reenactment or archival footage, built entirely around West's voice and the positions he stakes out on race, power, and the presidency.