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We’re beings toward death, we’re … two-legged, linguistically-conscious creatures born between urine and feces whose body will one day be the culinary delight of terrestrial worms.

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
Beings
Urine
Conscious
Terrestrial
Whose
Legged
Born
Worms
Death
Culinary
Two
Delight
Body
Creatures
Feces
Toward
Linguistically

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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.
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In a time in which Communist regimes have been rightfully discredited and yet alternatives to neoliberal capitalist societies are unwisely dismissed, I defend the fundamental claim of Marxist theory: there must be countervailing forces that defend people's needs against the brutality of profit driven capitalism.
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I must feel the fire of my soul so my intellectual blues can set others on fire.
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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.
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Wealth inequality has increased.
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To be human you must bear witness to justice.
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Jesus loves a free black man.
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I'm actually with the classics in general in terms of understanding truth in an existential mode. Therefore, philosophy becomes more a way of life as opposed to simply a mode of discourse.
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To get up in the morning & do the monumental tasks that face us, our labor is best fueled by love.
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He who learns death unlearns slavery.
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When ordinary people wake up, elites begin to tremble in their boots. They can't get away with their abuse. They can't get away with subjection. They can't get away with subjugation. They can't get away with exploitation. They can't get away with domination. It takes courage for folk to stand up.
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Too many young folk have addiction to superficial things and not enough conviction for substantial things like justice, truth and love.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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I'm a bluesman, which means that I put an emphasis on the minor keys.
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If you view life as a gold rush, you're going to end up worshiping a golden calf.
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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.
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what I think separates me from most philosophers probably is that I'm a bluesman in the life of the mind, I'm a jazzman in the world of ideas.
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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.
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