A short excerpt from a 2013 Greene Space forum in which Dr. Cornel West answers a young man’s question about what Black men entering the workforce have to look forward to. West first reframes the question itself as “a sign of hope,” then delivers a pointed critique of educational inequality — “rich kids get taught, poor kids get tested” — contrasting the well-resourced schooling of the wealthy with the under-staffed nurses’ offices, metal detectors, and vanished arts programs of poor Black neighborhoods, and mourning a culture that prizes “superficial spectacle” over depth. Presented here as a short excerpt from the longer forum.