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Cornel West Biography

Cornel Ronald West (born June 2, 1953) is an American philosopher, political activist, social critic, author, and public intellectual. The son of a Baptist minister, West focuses on the role of race, gender, and class in American society and the means by which people act and react to their "radical conditionedness." A radical democrat and democratic socialist, West draws intellectual contributions from multiple traditions, including Christianity, the black church, Marxism, neopragmatism, and transcendentalism. Among his most influential books are Race Matters (1994) and Democracy Matters (2004).

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Cornel West Quotes

Martin Luther King Jr's agenda was not to help Negroes overcome American apartheid in the south. It was to make America democracy a better place, where everyday people, from poor people who were white and red and yellow and black and brown, would be able to live lives in decency and dignity.

American, Kings, Live Life, Make, Red, Yellow

He who learns death unlearns slavery.

Death, Slavery, Thrive, Unlearn, Unlearns

I grew up in traditional black patriarchal culture and there is no doubt that I’m going to take a great many unconscious, but present, patriarchal complicities to the grave because it so deeply ensconced in how I look at the world. Therefore, very much like alcoholism, drug addiction, or racism patriarchy is a disease and we are in perennial recovery and relapse. So you have to get up every morning and struggle against it.

Alcoholism, Black, Complicities, Morning, Recovery, Struggle

When you love poor people THAT MUCH, when you love 'working people' THAT MUCH, that makes you the freest man
woman in the country. " - Cornel West in explaining that Obama is A fulfillment of MLK's dream not THE fulfillment of MLK's dream

Country, Dream, Love, Men

Collaborating with the musical genius of our time in some ways with Prince himself - late, great Gerald Levert,all these are forms of singing education, what the Greeks call paideia,that deep education to get us to shift from superficial things to serious things, to shift from bling-bling to life and death to justice and pain and joy, those fundamental, elemental things that we must come to terms with as we make our moves from our mother's womb to the tomb.

Fundamental, Mother, Moving, Pain, Terms, Things

I'm not pessimistic, because poor people tend to bounce back. We've been through worse than this - working people been through worse than this. We've got slavery and Jim Crow. We've got workers with no rights up until `35. We're going to bounce back. We are resilient, resisting people. So, it's not pessimism, but it is blues-like. It's not optimistic. We're just prisoners of hope, that's all.

Optimistic, People, Pessimism, Prisoners, Rights, Worse

For me, music is in no way ornamental or decorative, it's constitutive of who I am. And that's why, when I say I'm a blues man, that's a very serious vocation - to muster the courage to find your own unique voice, to forge your distinctive style in the world, to leave your imprint in the sands of time in such a way that your singularity, your individuality, remains something that people have to come to terms with.

Decorative, Men, Time, Unique, Voice

Some people don't want to be morally consistent. They just want to be tied to their one issue.

Consistent, Issues, Morally, People, Want

This book is the best treatment of the best American Marxist philosopher-and the best philosopher to emerge from American slums. Young Sidney Hook is essential reading for anyone interested in democratic theory and practice in America.

America, American, Book, Essential, Reading

Black people have always been America's wilderness in search of a promised land.

America, Inspirational, Land, Search, Wilderness

As long as you're scared you're on the plantation.

Long, Plantation, Plantations, Scared

It's just that the churches have been sleeping for a long time. A lot of people argue that the churches are even dead. I don't believe they're dead, but they've been sleeping, but they, I hope, will wake up, and that's one of my tasks is to make sure they wake up as much as they do before I die.

Believe, Long, Make, Sleep, Sleeping, Wake

This is what it is for Asians to be part of - support affirmative action, even though it may be against their interest, but they feel it's a matter of justice.

Against, Justice, Matter, May, Support

A black agenda is jobs, jobs, jobs, quality education, investment in infrastructure and strong democratic regulation of corporations. The black agenda, at its best, looks at America from the vantage point of the least of these and asks what's best for all.

America, Corporations, Jobs, Strong, Vantage

If you've got on the one hand death, dogmatism, domination, and on the other you've got desire in the face of death, dialogue in the face of dogmatism, democracy in the face of domination, then philosophy itself becomes a critical disposition of wrestling with desire in the face of death, wrestling with dialogue in the face of dogmatism, and wrestling with democracy, trying to keep alive a very fragile democratic experiment.

Democratic, Experiment, Hand, Hands, Philosophy, Wrestling

You don't begin by dehumanizing those who are dehumanizing you, because it contributes to the cycle of dehumanization in the world.

Cycle, Cycles, Dehumanization, Dehumanizing, World

There is no fundamental social change by being simply of individual and interpersonal actions. You have to have organizations and institutions that make a fundamental difference.

Actions, Difference, Differences, Fundamentals, Organization, Simply

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.

Black, Differences, Hope, Lawrence, Optimism

Wealth inequality has increased.

Increased, Inequality, Wealth, Wealth Inequality

Aesthetics have substantial political consequences. How one views oneself as beautiful or not beautiful or desirable or not desirable has deep consequences in terms of one’s feelings of self-worth and one’s capacity to be a political agent.

Agent, Beautiful, Self Worth, Substantial, Views

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