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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.

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
Simply
Existential
Philosophy
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Discourse
Understanding
Opposed
Actually
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Truth
General
Way
Therefore
Life
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Classics

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My dear brother Barack Obama has a certain fear of free black men. As a young brother who grows up in a white context, brilliant African father, he's always had to fear being a white man with black skin. All he has known culturally is white. He has a certain rootlessness, a deracination.
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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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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.
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You can't move forward until you look back.
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In situations of sparse resources along with degraded self-images and depoliticized sensibilities, one avenue for poor people is in existential rebellion and anarchic expression. The capacity to produce social chaos is the last resort of desperate people.
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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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To be great in our times too often means to have great prosperity and no moral magnanimity at all.
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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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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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You're going to end up with a government in Egypt that is concerned about the precious Palestinians, the same way we ought to be concerned about both precious Palestinians and precious Jews.
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He who learns death unlearns slavery.
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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.
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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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The paradox of race in America is that our common destiny is more pronounced and imperiled precisely when our divisions are deeper.
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I don't believe in the elimination of evil. But I believe in fightin' against evil.
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There ought to be a robust, uninhibited conversation in black America with different black ideological perspectives.
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When you place a high value on truth, you have to think for yourself.
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I believe philosophy must go to school with the poets it's not either/or, it's not over or against.
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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.
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For me music is central, so when one's talking about poetry, for the most part Plato's talking primarily about words, where I talk about notes, I talk about tone, I talk about timbre, I talk about rhythms.
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