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The legacy of [Martin Luther] King is the very thing that must be expanded if America is to be free and democratic in the 21st century. It's just as simple as that.

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
Simple
Expanded
Free
Martin
America
Luther
Must
Legacy
Thing
King
Kings
Democratic
Century

More quotes by Cornel West

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We can't have a freedom struggle without free choice.
Cornel West
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Reelection ought not to be the primary preoccupation of any politician. It ought to be standing up for truth and justice.
Cornel West
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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.
Cornel West
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If you view life as a gold rush, you're going to end up worshiping a golden calf.
Cornel West
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I think hip-hop can be prophetic and progressive, and at the same time, the dominant forms tend to be homophobic, misogynistic and something that we need to critically call into question.
Cornel West
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Playboy has a long history of high-quality interviews along with the objectification of women, and so I think she does have a point there. I don't think that the words are necessarily nullified. It's just that that context is something you ought to be suspicious of.
Cornel West
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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.
Cornel West
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I love the academy in terms of the life of the mind and the world of ideas. I also love the streets. I love the churches and mosques and synagogues. I love the trade union centers. I love the community centers. I speak regularly at prisons and so forth.
Cornel West
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You must let suffering speak, if you want to hear the truth
Cornel West
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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.
Cornel West
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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
Cornel West
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It's true that in reading an interview, I have a little critique of the objectification of women in a [Playboy] magazine that is perceived to doing that.
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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All you have is a gift a to give.
Cornel West
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Music at its best...is the grand archeology into and transfiguration of our guttural cry, the great human effort to grasp in time our deepest passions and yearnings as prisoners of time. Profound music leads us--beyond language--to the dark roots of our scream and the celestial heights of our silence.
Cornel West
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I don't draw any distinctions between forms of bigotry or forms of ideology that lose sight of the humanity of people. I can't stand white supremacy. I can't stand male supremacy. I can't stand imperial subjugation. I can't stand homophobia.
Cornel West
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We have a market-driven society so obsessed with buying and selling and obsessed with power and pleasure and property.
Cornel West
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The blues aren’t pessimistic. We’re prisoners of hope but we tell the truth and the truth is dark.
Cornel West
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liberty, which means resisting all forms of cultural authoritarianism, be it from the right wing church, black ideologues, black nationalists, or mainstream white media. We have to accent liberty and freedom of expression and thought in all their forms.
Cornel West
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None of us alone can save the nation or the world. But each of us can make a positive difference if we commit ourselves to do so. (p. 109)
Cornel West