Quote

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

Change background

T
T
T

Change font

TAGS & TOPICS

Cornel West
Age: 71
Born: 1953
Born: June 2
Actor
Critic
Philosopher
Theologian
University Teacher
Writer
Tulsa
Oklahoma
Cornel Ronald West
Cornel R. West
Even
Though
People
Working
Poor
Action
Doesn
Part
Problem
Affirmative
Children
Apply

More quotes by Cornel West

Image
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
Image
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
Image
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
Image
We live in a world where people are fearful of extremism, but Martin Luther King would say he was always trying to keep the flow of love in place. In that sense, he turned the world on its head.
Cornel West
Image
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
Image
Martin Luther King was a radical democrat, by which I mean someone who is a foe of wealth inequality.
Cornel West
Image
The blues aren’t pessimistic. We’re prisoners of hope but we tell the truth and the truth is dark.
Cornel West
Image
Philosophy is in fact a quest for wisdom based in sophia that quest for wisdom has everything to do with a love of wisdom.
Cornel West
Image
We have a market-driven society so obsessed with buying and selling and obsessed with power and pleasure and property.
Cornel West
Image
Reelection ought not to be the primary preoccupation of any politician. It ought to be standing up for truth and justice.
Cornel West
Image
Drew Dellinger is one of the most creative, courageous and prophetic poets of his generation. I love his spirit. Don't miss him!
Cornel West
Image
The greatest gift you can give someone is the gift of inspiration.
Cornel West
Image
Pleasure, no matter how desirable, is never innocent: it's always presupposing and assuming a certain kind of social order, one usually shot through structures of domination.
Cornel West
Image
There is always a very delicate interplay between individual actions and institutional conditions.
Cornel West
Image
Black people have been working hard for decades.
Cornel West
Image
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
Image
To live is to wrestle with despair, yet never allow despair to have the last word.
Cornel West
Image
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.
Cornel West
Image
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.
Cornel West
Image
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.
Cornel West