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Martin Luther King wanted to be morally consistent and speak out against various things that were wrong, not just racism.

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
Various
Kings
Wrong
Morally
Speak
Martin
Wanted
Luther
Things
Consistent
Racism
King

More quotes by Cornel West

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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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Martin Luther King was an extremist of love.
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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As human beings, everyone has stuff coming at them, and a certain kind of fear.
Cornel West
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He who learns death unlearns slavery.
Cornel West
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Black people have always been America's wilderness in search of a promised land.
Cornel West
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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.
Cornel West
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To be a Christian is to live dangerously, honestly, freely - to step in the name of love as if you may land on nothing, yet to keep on stepping because the something that sustains you no empire can give you and no empire can take away.
Cornel West
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Poor people can be greedy, too. It's just that they don't have any material resources. We need shaping of the souls as well as shaping of our institutions.
Cornel West
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To get up in the morning & do the monumental tasks that face us, our labor is best fueled by love.
Cornel West
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When ordinary people wake up, elites begin to tremble in their boots. They can't get away with their abuse. They can't get away with subjection. They can't get away with subjugation. They can't get away with exploitation. They can't get away with domination. It takes courage for folk to stand up.
Cornel West
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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.
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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I was a gangster when I was young. I had a Robin Hood mentality and tended to always want to support the weak against the strong, but sometimes it was cohesive and I really needed to fall in love with the power of education to find the right venue to express my rage. I still have a righteous indignation at injustice, no matter what form it takes.
Cornel West
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It's fashionable to be indifferent to other people's suffering
Cornel West
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Reelection ought not to be the primary preoccupation of any politician. It ought to be standing up for truth and justice.
Cornel West
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All you have is a gift a to give.
Cornel West
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I think philosophy is all about lived experience, which is to say life in the streets, life in a variety of different contexts.
Cornel West
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In the practice of radical love, you are embracing human beings across the board, but you do give a preference - very much like Jesus - to the least of these, to the weak, to the vulnerable. That includes poor whites and poor browns, as well as the poor in black ghettos.
Cornel West
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I cannot be an optimist but I am a prisoner of hope.
Cornel West