Cornel West

Cornel West

Philosopher

Cornel West is a prominent philosopher, political activist, and author known for his work on race, justice, and democracy, particularly in 'Race Matters.'

People Thinking Kings Black Mean White
Born
June 2, 1952
Quotes
353
Rank
#3027

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Cornel West quotes (page 16 of 18)

353 quotes — follow a thought to its full quote page.

Cornel West Philosopher
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"I'm a bluesman moving through a blues-soaked America, a blues-soaked world, a planet where catastrophe and celebration... "Joy and Pain" - sit side by side. The blues started off in some field, in some plantation, in some mind, in some imagination, in some heart. The blues blew over to the next plantation, and then the next state. The blues went south to north, got electrified and even sanctified. The blues got mixed up with jazz and gospel and rock and roll."

Pain Moving Heart
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"We want an economic team, Paul Krugman and Robert Kuttner, Joseph Steiglitz's people and others, who say, you know what? We're sophisticated economists but we're concerned about poor and working people."

Team People Want
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"We need to put strong Democratic pressure on President Obama in the name of poor and working people."

Strong Names People
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"We will not allow this day of the Martin Luther King, Jr. Memorial to go without somebody going to jail."

Kings Jail Memorial
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"Hey, you got something going here. I think we've got a chance for some progressive policy that actually focuses on poor and working people."

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

Real White Black
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"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
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"Nobody in my family or in my neighborhood used the language that they used at the University of Chicago. I remember the first time I heard the word "value" repeated again and again by my professor. Value to me was the price of a frying pan."

Language Remember My Family
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"American citizens have been killed abroad by drones with no due process, no accountability, no judicial review."

Accountability Drones Citizens
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"Does he have a double standard for black critics as opposed to white critics?"

White Black Doe
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"Frank Rich, Paul Krugman, Maureen Dowd, a whole host of brilliant, courageous critics say all kinds of things, and he [Barack Obama] treats them with respect. They get invited to the White House. I say the same thing, he talks to me like I'm a Cub Scout."

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

Kings Mean Wealth
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"Going all the way back to Jeremiah Wright and Tavis Smiley and Van Jones and even Shirley Sherrod and maybe even Maxine Waters and Charles Rangel. We're going to see what his [Barack Obama] response is."

Water Way Smiley
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"I think that when we talk about education I was also blessed to talk with my dear brother Arne Duncan. I had never met him, the secretary of Education. We had a wonderful talk. And I had told him quite explicitly education is a right, it's not a race to the top."

Brother Blessed Thinking
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"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
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"If the churches don't move, much of the community won't move. We've got a situation in which a black church is still a major institution in the black community where 55 percent of the black folk attend and over 75 pass through its doors."

Moving Doors Community
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