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Poor people and working people have not been the focus of the Obama administration. That for me is not just a disappointment but a kind of betrayal.

Cornel West

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Cornel West
Age: 71
Born: 1953
Born: June 2
Actor
Critic
Philosopher
Theologian
University Teacher
Writer
Tulsa
Oklahoma
Cornel Ronald West
Cornel R. West
Focus
Working
Poor
Kind
Betrayal
People
Disappointment
Administration
Obama

More quotes by Cornel West

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There used to be corporations that produced products. Now there are just banks that produce deals, hedge-fund-driven banks and derivatives and those things.
Cornel West
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Well technologically and so forth, it's a breakthrough, and yet [Birth of a Nation,] it's very white supremacist to the core in terms of the narrative content.
Cornel West
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The wonderful thing about the black church for me is that it forces you to come to terms with the centrality of love in the world.
Cornel West
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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.
Cornel West
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Death is always a constant possibility and probability and of course an inevitability, as well.
Cornel West
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In the practice of radical love, you are embracing human beings across the board, but you do give a preference - very much like Jesus - to the least of these, to the weak, to the vulnerable. That includes poor whites and poor browns, as well as the poor in black ghettos.
Cornel West
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To live is to wrestle with despair, yet never allow despair to have the last word.
Cornel West
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A rich life consists fundamentally of serving others, trying to leave the world a little better than you found it.
Cornel West
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Black people have been working hard for decades.
Cornel West
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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.
Cornel West
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Life is such a mysterious thing that you are up one day you are down the next day. A lot of the homeless brothers and sisters who were a success ten years ago, they are now on the street. Maybe ten years later they will be a success, but the crucial question is what is the quality of their life.
Cornel West
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If you are always trying to do something for a cause bigger than you - connected with serving others - then it is hard to be guilty.
Cornel West
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You keep folks so intimidated. You can give them money, access, but they're still scared. And as long as you're scared, you're on the plantation.
Cornel West
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Philosophy is fundamentally about how you come to terms with living your life and trying to do it in a wise manner, and, for me, that means decently and compassionately and courageously and so forth.
Cornel West
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There is always a very delicate interplay between individual actions and institutional conditions.
Cornel West
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American mainstream is obsessed with black creative genius - be it music, walk, style - but at the same time puts a low priority on the black social misery which is the very context out of which that creativity flows.
Cornel West
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The question is really how do we think seriously about this mechanism called a market. It ought to be determining not values but prices.
Cornel West
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White supremacy is so deep-seated that it's hard to see it eliminated. But we could definitely push it back.
Cornel West
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For me, musicians are poets. Beethoven describes himself as a poet of tones, just like Coltrane's a poet of tempo.
Cornel West
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I still have a righteous indignation at injustice, no matter what form it takes. It could be homophobia, it could be white supremacy, male supremacy, imperial arrogance, class subordination or whatever.
Cornel West