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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.

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
Committed
Compassion
Exercise
Courage
Justice
Love
Empathize
Prophetic

More quotes by Cornel West

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I think anytime we talk about transforming in capitalist society, we are talking about a process not a particular event so you can't talk about a socialist revolution.
Cornel West
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The evil is so ubiquitous in terms of objectification of all of us, that one can say that almost about any TV and even radio show.
Cornel West
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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.
Cornel West
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It's impossible to translate Wall Street greed into one or two demands.
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
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Martin Luther King Jr's agenda was not to help Negroes overcome American apartheid in the south. It was to make America democracy a better place, where everyday people, from poor people who were white and red and yellow and black and brown, would be able to live lives in decency and dignity.
Cornel West
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The problem is that in America is that the nation state has been so weak when it comes to the history of big markets the history of big business in a way so we have a very weak welfare state compared to European nation states.
Cornel West
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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.
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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Philosophy is fundamentally about how you come to terms with living your life and trying to do it in a wise manner, and, for me, that means decently and compassionately and courageously and so forth.
Cornel West
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It takes more courage to examine the dark corners of your own soul than it does for a soldier to fight on the battlefield.
Cornel West
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It would just be nice if we had leaders in Washington who could unequivocally take a stand on behalf of democratic movements in other parts of the world. And even this is true for even Brother Barack Obama.
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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Success is such a relative thing for me. I'm fundamentally a Christian which means that ultimately all of the penultimate titles and things you just had to wear with a loose garment. Really.
Cornel West
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I do believe that not just the churches but strong communities, strong trade unions, strong families can make a difference in terms of producing persons much more virtuous than what one usually finds in a gangster culture.
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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Wall Street is stronger than ever.
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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But black folks have never really been optimists. We've been prisoners of hope, and hope is qualitatively different from optimism in the way that there's a difference between The Blues and Lawrence Welk. The Blues and Jazz have to do with hope while the other is sugarcoated music which has to do with sentimental optimism.
Cornel West