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Our problem is that we don't have enough people in America, including black people, who are progressive and willing to sacrifice their popularity in order to tell the truth.

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
Enough
Sacrifice
People
Willing
Black
Tell
Order
Truth
Popularity
America
Progressive
Problem
Including

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You must let suffering speak, if you want to hear the truth
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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.
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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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To be human you must bear witness to justice.
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For me, musicians are poets. Beethoven describes himself as a poet of tones, just like Coltrane's a poet of tempo.
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I don't believe in the elimination of evil. But I believe in fightin' against evil.
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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.
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The interesting thing for me is, if that had been a left-wing person raising questions, [President Obama] probably would have expressed his anger. Because Obama really does get upset about progressives.
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You can't move forward until you look back.
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When you are fundamentally committed to something that is right, you just decide to go down fighting. Period.
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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.
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If you view life as a gold rush, you're going to end up worshiping a golden calf.
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Certainly Martin Luther King, in the mainstream perception of him, had a dream. Yes, he did. But the question becomes, what was that dream? It wasn't the American Dream. It was a dream that all human beings, especially poor and working people, be treated with dignity.
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Every president needs to deal with the permanent government of the country, and the permanent government of the country is Wall Street oligarchs and corporate plutocrats and the questions becomes what is the relationship between that president and Wall Street.
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Martin Luther King was not a Marxist or a communist, but his radical love leads him to put poor and working people at the center.
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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.
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There's a number of hip-hop artists who are highly talented but politically retrograde.
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As human beings, everyone has stuff coming at them, and a certain kind of fear.
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I believe philosophy must go to school with the poets it's not either/or, it's not over or against.
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The question is really how do we think seriously about this mechanism called a market. It ought to be determining not values but prices.
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