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Part of the problem is we had so far to go, given the deep homophobia in our society. But, the movement is very real. The movement is very real.

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
Movement
Society
Given
Part
Problem
Real
Homophobia
Deep

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The most important assets we have are our bodies and our energy which can be put to good use as resources in political activism for poor and working people.
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Music is the very cement that has not just held the black community together but holds black selves together in a fundamental sense.
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Certainly Martin Luther King, in the mainstream perception of him, had a dream. Yes, he did. But the question becomes, what was that dream? It wasn't the American Dream. It was a dream that all human beings, especially poor and working people, be treated with dignity.
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And when I talk about love, I'm talking about something that's great, though, brother. I'm talking about something that will sustain you.
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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.
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I'm a bluesman, which means that I put an emphasis on the minor keys.
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Affirmative action is something that I think is very crucial and necessary.
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I believe that all of us have gangster proclivities and greedy orientations that need accountability. That's why democracies are necessary. We have to have institutions to try to curtail the use of arbitrary power so that our greedy orientations and gangster-like proclivities don't get out of hand.
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Try to just be true to ourselves, whoever we are, but willing to grow, even as we're true to ourselves.
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There is always a very delicate interplay between individual actions and institutional conditions.
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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.
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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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We have a market-driven society so obsessed with buying and selling and obsessed with power and pleasure and property.
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The rage is still there but I found the right kind of channel, because it's tied to a love, it's tied to a struggle for justice. And most importantly, for me, it's tied to a recognition that I am a cracked vessel.
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We want to bear witness today that we know the relation between corporate greed and what goes on too often in the Supreme Court decisions.
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To be human, at the most profound level, is to encounter honestly the inescapable circumstances that constrain us, yet muster the courage to struggle compassionately for our own unique individualities and for more democratic and free societies.
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Black people have been working hard for decades.
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I cannot be an optimist but I am a prisoner of hope.
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Pleasure, no matter how desirable, is never innocent: it's always presupposing and assuming a certain kind of social order, one usually shot through structures of domination.
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Those who have never despaired have neither lived nor loved. Hope is inseparable from despair. Those of us who truly hope make despair a constant companion whom we out-wrestle every day owing to our commitment to justice, love, and hope.
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