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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.

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
Mind
Think
Thinking
Life
Separates
World
Philosophers
Philosopher
Probably
Ideas

More quotes by Cornel West

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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.
Cornel West
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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.
Cornel West
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Barack Obama has domesticated the left in such a way that we feel as if we have no alternative but him...I refuse to accept that.
Cornel West
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Nihilism is a natural consequence of a culture (or civilization) ruled and regulated by categories that mask manipulation, mastery and domination of peoples and nature.
Cornel West
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The greatest gift you can give someone is the gift of inspiration.
Cornel West
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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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I recall coming across a line by the late Charles Tilly when he said, The conditions for the possibility of social movements have been called into question in the twenty-first century. And I said to myself, my god, a society in history without social movements, for me, is very difficult to live in.
Cornel West
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There are three dominant tendencies in a neoliberal society: financialized, privatized, militarized. And when it comes to black poor people, we get all three.
Cornel West
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Larry Summers, I think, he had a long history of arrogance and relative ignorance about poor people's culture and working people's culture and so forth.
Cornel West
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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.
Cornel West
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Frederick Douglas's agenda was an agenda, not for black people to get out of slavery. It was for America to become a better democracy. And it's spilt over for women's rights it's split over for worker's rights and so forth.
Cornel West
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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.
Cornel West
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Death is always a constant possibility and probability and of course an inevitability, as well.
Cornel West
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Affirmative action is something that I think is very crucial and necessary.
Cornel West
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I still have a righteous indignation at injustice, no matter what form it takes. It could be homophobia, it could be white supremacy, male supremacy, imperial arrogance, class subordination or whatever.
Cornel West
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Martin Luther King's legacy is never to be measured by bricks and mortar, but rather by the kind of lives that we live, and the kind of love and service that we render.
Cornel West
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I don't believe in the elimination of evil. But I believe in fightin' against evil.
Cornel West
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To accept your country without betraying it, you must love it for that which shows what it might become. America -- this monument to the genius of ordinary men and women, this place where hope becomes capacity, this long, halting turn of 'no' into the 'yes' -- needs citizens who love it enough to re-imagine and re-make it.
Cornel West
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I like to be multi-contextual, which is much more important than being multicultural.
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, it doesn't leave a whole lot of time for non-market values and non-market activity so that love and trust and justice, concern for the poor, that's being pushed to the margins, and you can see it.
Cornel West