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Cornel West Quotes - Page 14

All Quotes Accountability Addiction Arrogance Children Church Commitment Community Compassion Country Culture Democracy Dialogue Evidence Evil Fighting Genius Giving Greatness Greed Hatred Healing Heart Hip Hop House Humanity Inequality Inspirational Integrity Jazz Jesus Joy Justice Language Legacy Loneliness Luther Lying Morning Obsession Optimism Overcoming Pain Passion Philosophy Pleasure Quality Racism Rage Reading Sacrifice Sadness School Serving Others Silence Slavery Soul Struggle Suffering Values Wall War Wealth White Supremacy Wrestling

I wished the president [Barack Obama] were more Martin Luther King-like.

I wished the president [Barack Obama] were more "Martin Luther King-like."

Kings, President, Luther

Anybody who takes Martin Luther King seriously has got to go beyond the standard understanding of who he was, has to connect those dots.

Kings, Understanding, Dots

Source: www.chicagotribune.com

Why I can't stand this phrase about I don't have any permanent enemies, any permanent friends, only permanent interests. I can't stand that. It's a matter of principles. What kind of integrity, what kind of morality do you have?

Integrity, Enemy, Principles

"Cornel West Reconsiders President Obama". "Talk of the Nation" with Tony Cox, www.npr.org. August 2, 2010.

I just don't want the fear from the right to be used by the [Barack] Obama administration to silence critics. We have to be willing to tell the truth because we're trying to speak about conditions that are being rendered invisible in our prisons and schools in the hood and so forth and so on.

School, Silence, Trying

The problem is not just affirmative action, though. The problem is poor people, working people and their children, and affirmative action for the most part doesn't even apply to them.

Children, People, Action

"Cornel West Reconsiders President Obama". "Talk of the Nation" with Tony Cox, www.npr.org. August 2, 2010.

Wealth inequality has increased.

Wealth, Wealth Inequality, Inequality

Source: www.chicagotribune.com

Music is the very cement that has not just held the black community together but holds black selves together in a fundamental sense.

Self, Community, Black

Interview with Itabari Njeri, articles.latimes.com. October 22, 1995.

But black folks have never really been optimists. We've been prisoners of hope, and hope is qualitatively different from optimism in the way that there's a difference between The Blues and Lawrence Welk. The Blues and Jazz have to do with hope while the other is sugarcoated music which has to do with sentimental optimism.

Differences, Optimism, Black

Our problem is that we don't have enough people in America, including black people, who are progressive and willing to sacrifice their popularity in order to tell the truth.

Sacrifice, America, Order

Source: www.chicagotribune.com

What is accurately portrayed is the rich humanity not just of Martin Luther King but of the movement, which was a multiracial movement. You had blacks and whites coming together and sacrificing, organizing and mobilizing the world. That's the first time we've had collective action put at the center of any kind of portrayal of Martin King on the screen.

Kings, Sacrifice, Humanity

Source: www.chicagotribune.com

And as a Christian, I got something the world didn't give me, the world can't take away, so I find joy that can never be reduced to anything.

Christian, Giving, Joy

"Cornel West Reconsiders President Obama". "Talk of the Nation" with Tony Cox, www.npr.org. August 2, 2010.

The important thing for me as an educator is how to - how do we unsettle the minds and touch the souls of significant numbers of young people who don't read texts or don't read my texts.

Numbers, People, Soul

"Cornel West, 'Living And Loving Out Loud'". "Talk of the Nation" with Neal Conan, www.npr.org. October 29, 2009.

I recall coming across a line by the late Charles Tilly when he said, "The conditions for the possibility of social movements have been called into question in the twenty-first century." And I said to myself, my god, a society in history without social movements, for me, is very difficult to live in.

Possibility, Difficult

Source: www.guernicamag.com

We live in a world where people are fearful of extremism, but Martin Luther King would say he was always trying to keep the flow of love in place. In that sense, he turned the world on its head.

Kings, Always Trying, People

Source: www.chicagotribune.com

Martin Luther King was an extremist of love.

Kings, Luther, Extremist

Source: www.chicagotribune.com

When we think of globalization we are thinking in part of structures and institutions that have been developed over time and that have allowed us to become more interdependent and interrelated. But the development, the extraordinary development, of those structures and institutions has not fundamentally transformed our humanity. We are still those animals with fears and anxieties and insecurities in the face of death and dread and disappointment and disease.

Disappointment, Thinking, Animal

Source: blogs.ssrc.org

I am excited to have a black president because white supremacy is real and it needs to be shattered.

Real, White, Black

We want to bear witness today that we know the relation between corporate greed and what goes on too often in the Supreme Court decisions.

Greed, Decision, Goes On

"Cornel West, A Fighter, Angers Obama Supporters". "All Things Considered" with Melissa Block, Michele Norris, www.npr.org. October 24, 2011.

We are intent on building a movement. The next step is grassroots town meetings. We must keep alive the dialogue around the covenants.

Next Steps, Movement, Alive

I'd say, [writing memoir] not so much a model, but maybe to provide an insight, here or there, to help somebody come to terms with the dark corners of their own soul, to come to terms with the undecided, their own sense of self, and maybe help develop a capacity to love - to love wisdom, love justice.

Writing, Dark, Capacity To Love

Never before has the seductive market way of life held such sway in nearly every sphere of American life. This marketing way of life promotes addictions to stimulation and obsessions with comfort and convenience ... centered primarily around bodily pleasures and status rankings. ... The common denominator is a rugged and ragged individualism and rapacious hedonism in quest of a perennial "high" in body and mind.

Addiction, Seductive, Black History

So much has to do with going beyond treating black people as cosmetic and symbolic items, as opposed to genuine personalities and human beings. And that is a deep moral and spiritual issue, which can of course be backed up by Civil Rights Commissions which enforce the laws against any form of discrimination.

Spiritual, Law, Issues

I think the important thing to understand first and foremost about Michael Jackson is that he was the international emblem of the African American blues spiritual impulse that goes back through slavery - Jim Crow, Jane Crow, up to the present moment, through a Louis Armstrong, through a Ma Rainey, through a Bessie Smith, all the way to John Coltrane, Aretha Franklin and Nina Simone.

Spiritual, Thinking, African American

Source: www.pbs.org

I do believe that healing takes place on a number of different levels and that in fact black healing can be deepened by trying to heal across as well as within. But it could be that to call for black and Jewish healing without acknowledging the need for intra-black healing puts the cart before the horse.

Horse, Believe, Healing

Interview with Itabari Njeri, articles.latimes.com. October 22, 1995.

Michael Jackson was part of that tremendous wave in the ocean of human expression and it happened to be located first and foremost in Gary, Indiana, working class.

Ocean, Expression, Class

Source: www.pbs.org

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