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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.

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
Black
Sense
Cement
Together
Selves
Music
Holds
Self
Fundamental
Fundamentals
Held
Community

More quotes by Cornel West

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Anytime I look at a president, I don't care what color he is.
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You can't talk about truth without talking about learning how to die because it's precisely by learning how to die, examining yourself and transforming your old self into a better self, that you actually live more intensely and critically and abundantly.
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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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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.
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Martin Luther King wanted to be morally consistent and speak out against various things that were wrong, not just racism.
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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.
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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.
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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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There is no such thing as institutional conditions without any individual actions and no such thing as individual action without institutional conditions. So there is always personal responsibility.
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The blues aren’t pessimistic. We’re prisoners of hope but we tell the truth and the truth is dark.
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Poor people can be greedy, too. It's just that they don't have any material resources. We need shaping of the souls as well as shaping of our institutions.
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You can't lead the people if you don't love the people. You can't save the people if you don't serve the people.
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For me the prophetic has to do with mustering the courage to love, to empathize, to exercise compassion, and to be committed to justice.
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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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As human beings, everyone has stuff coming at them, and a certain kind of fear.
Cornel West
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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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I take my fundamental cue from John Coltrane that says there must be a priority of integrity, honesty, decency, and mastery of craft.
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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.
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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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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