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Cornel West Quotes - Page 8

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

We're talking about a prison-industrial complex. We're talking about a war on drugs that's generating unprecedented levels of incarcerated folk. We're talking about dilapidated housing. We're talking about joblessness

We're talking about a prison-industrial complex. We're talking about a war on drugs that's generating unprecedented levels of incarcerated folk. We're talking about dilapidated housing. We're talking about joblessness and underemployment.

War, Talking, Drug

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

You're trying to just leave the world a little better.

Trying, World, Littles

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

As human beings, everyone has stuff coming at them, and a certain kind of fear.

Stuff, Kind, Certain

Source: www.interviewmagazine.com

I always felt called to serve, to empower and ennoble as many people as I could, teaching, truth-telling, exposing lies, bearing witness, and being willing to live and die for something bigger than yourself.

Lying, Teaching, People

Source: www.interviewmagazine.com

Martin Luther King was a radical democrat, by which I mean someone who is a foe of wealth inequality.

Kings, Mean, Wealth

Source: www.chicagotribune.com

I had a passion and love of learning and wisdom that was inseparable from a love of music and the arts. I've never viewed them in any way as being separable.

Art, Passion, And Love

Source: www.interviewmagazine.com

So more and more black folk tend to be well-adjusted to [Barack] Obama's presidency, but does that mean they're well-adjusted to injustice? Because we don't hear our president talking about the new Jim Crow, the prison-industrial complex.

Mean, Talking, Crow

We are a democracy and we don't believe in just hunting down gangsters and killing them. We believe in trying to find the gangsters and bring them back for trial, and give them a trial under rule of law. That's what democracies do.

Believe, Hunting, Law

Every empire suffers from hubris, arrogance and condescension, and therefore a moral blindness. That's true of the American empire, it was true of the British Empireearlier, and it will certainly be true of the Chinese Empire in the future.

Chinese, Suffering, Arrogance

I would want to conceive of philosophy as grounded in the very long humanist tradition that is the best of the West, which is open to the East and North and South.

Philosophy, Long, West

Source: blogs.ssrc.org

And every historic effort to forge a democratic project has been undermined by two fundamental realities: poverty and paranoia. The persistence of poverty generates levels of despair that deepen social conflict the escalation of paranoia produces levels of distrust that reinforce cultural division. Rae is the most explosive issue in American life precisely because it forces us to confront the tragic facts of poverty and paranoia despair, and distrust. In short, a candid examination of race matters takes us to the core of the crisis of American democracy (p. 107).

Reality, Persistence, Two

Cornel West (2017). “Race Matters: With a New Introduction”, p.107, Beacon Press

I think hip-hop can be prophetic and progressive, and at the same time, the dominant forms tend to be homophobic, misogynistic and something that we need to critically call into question.

Thinking, Hip Hop, Needs

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

What does it really mean to be a leftist in the early part of the 21st century? What are we really talking about? And I can just be very candid with you. It means to have a certain kind of temperament, to make certain kinds of political and ethical choices, and to exercise certain analytical focuses in targeting on the catastrophic and the monstrous, the scandalous, the traumatic, that are often hidden and concealed in the deodorized and manicured discourses of the mainstream. That's what it means to be a leftist. So let's just be clear about it.

Mean, Exercise, Talking

I think nonviolence and the mediation of conflict by means of respecting civility must be promoted. But being the kind of beings we [peoplep] are - wrestling with greed, and wrestling with fears and security, anxieties, wrestling with hatred that's shot through all of us - wars are here to stay.

War, Mean, Wrestling

Source: genius.com

If you can't have a good time and smile and relate to people across race and class, then the success that you have ultimately is just sounding brass and tinkling symbol.

Race, Class, People

Source: www.pbs.org

The white backlash has been at work for a long time. It's been part and parcel of the Republican Party for the last 25 years or so, and it's been highly successful up until Barack Obama was ingeniously able to come up with strategies to deal with it.

Party, Successful, White

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

I'm a bluesman, which means that I put an emphasis on the minor keys.

Mean, Keys, Emphasis

Source: genius.com

Love and trust and justice, concern for the poor, that's being pushed to the margins, and you can see it.

Justice, Love And Trust, Poor

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

My dear brother Barack Obama has a certain fear of free black men. As a young brother who grows up in a white context, brilliant African father, he's always had to fear being a white man with black skin. All he has known culturally is white. He has a certain rootlessness, a deracination.

Brother, Growing Up, Father

Drew Dellinger is one of the most creative, courageous and prophetic poets of his generation. I love his spirit. Don't miss him!

Creative, Missing, Generations

I've been blessed, I think, to have tremendous joy in my life in pursuing my vocation, my calling.

Blessed, Thinking, Joy

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

I believe philosophy must go to school with the poets; it's not either/or, it's not over or against.

Philosophy, Believe, School

Source: genius.com

When you place a high value on truth, you have to think for yourself.

Thinking, Think For Yourself, Values

Twitter post from Aug 24, 2010

I'm black, so, you know, I'm again with black folk, but it's a love that spills over to vanilla suburbs and red reservations and brown barrios and yellow slices.

Yellow, Black, Red

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

I think we must never, ever demonize one another. That's true not just black people to black people; that's human being to human being.

Thinking, People, Black

Source: www.pbs.org

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