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So more and more black folk tend to be well-adjusted to [Barack] Obama's presidency, but does that mean they're well-adjusted to injustice? Because we don't hear our president talking about the new Jim Crow, the prison-industrial complex.

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
President
Complex
Black
Injustice
Doe
Folks
Adjusted
Wells
Prison
Crow
Well
Tend
Folk
Mean
Obama
Industrial
Hear
Presidency
Talking
Complexes

More quotes by Cornel West

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A fully functional multiracial society cannot be achieved without a sense of history and open, honest dialogue.
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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.
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Philosophy is in fact a quest for wisdom based in sophia that quest for wisdom has everything to do with a love of wisdom.
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I think we must never, ever demonize one another. That's true not just black people to black people that's human being to human being.
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You keep folks so intimidated. You can give them money, access, but they're still scared. And as long as you're scared, you're on the plantation.
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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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Affirmative action is something that I think is very crucial and necessary.
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Education is soul crafting.
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We live in a predatory capitalist society in which everything is for sale. Everybody is for sale, so there is ubiquitous commodification - be it of music, food, people, or parking meters.
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We've been talking about this for a good while, the immorality of drones, dropping bombs on innocent people. It's been over 200 children so far. These are war crimes.
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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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I remind young people everywhere I go, one of the worst things the older generation did was to tell them for twenty-five years Be successful, be successful, be successful as opposed to Be great, be great, be great. There's a qualitative difference.
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In a time in which Communist regimes have been rightfully discredited and yet alternatives to neoliberal capitalist societies are unwisely dismissed, I defend the fundamental claim of Marxist theory: there must be countervailing forces that defend people's needs against the brutality of profit driven capitalism.
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Rage is fine as long as it doesn't deteriorate into bitterness.
Cornel West
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Never forget that justice is what love looks like in public
Cornel West
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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.
Cornel West
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To be human you must bear witness to 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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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.
Cornel West
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And as a Christian, I got something the world didn't give me, the world can't take away, so I find joy that can never be reduced to anything.
Cornel West