I cannot be an optimist but I am a prisoner of hope. Cornel West More Quotes by Cornel West More Quotes From Cornel West When you think of 244 years of slavery and 81 years of that finally you are going to be allowed to be part of the pool from which people choose jobs. That's not a substantive kind of move, but it was very important. Cornel West jobs moving thinking 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 compassion exercise justice Affirmative action is something that I think is very crucial and necessary. Cornel West affirmative action thinking The rage is still there but I found the right kind of channel, because it's tied to a love, it's tied to a struggle for justice. And most importantly, for me, it's tied to a recognition that I am a cracked vessel. Cornel West recognition struggle justice The problem is that affirmative action could never really get at the issue of corporate power in the workplace, and so you ended up with the downsizing; you ended up with de-industrializing. You ended up with the marginalizing of working people and working poor people even while affirmative action was taking place, and a new black middle class was expanding. Cornel West issues class people There is no fundamental social change by being simply of individual and interpersonal actions. You have to have organizations and institutions that make a fundamental difference. Cornel West differences organization fundamentals Fantasies are real. They have effects on your soul, even though, as I was too young to really step forward. Cornel West real soul steps When black America is on the move, America is on the move. Cornel West black america moving I have some notions that have people conceiving of themselves as capable of changing the world. That's why, for me, the issues of self-love, self-respect and self-regard are preconditions for human agency and especially black agency, given the fact that we have been and are such a hated and despised people. Cornel West issues agency self Any great artist is wrestling with their sadness and loneliness, their fears, anxieties and securities, and they're transfiguring those into complicated forms of expression that affect our hearts, minds and souls and remind us of who we are as human beings, the fragility of our human status and the inevitability of death. Cornel West sadness loneliness heart There are different varieties and forms of capitalism. There are priorities within the capitalist society so that you can have countervailing forces come in and empower your working people and your poor people. There are capitalist societies that do not have poverty. America needs to understand that. Cornel West priorities america people 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 soul people needs All talks about legacies of white supremacy must be tied to empowering the lives of poor and working people as a whole. The black agenda - from Frederick Douglas to A. Philip Randolph, Martin Luther King Jr, Fannie Lou Hammer to Ella Baker - has always been tied to race talk inseparable from expanding possibilities of democracy, expanding empowerment of everyday people. Cornel West race kings white 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 black church world Music is the very cement that has not just held the black community together but holds black selves together in a fundamental sense. Cornel West black community self The important thing for me as an educator is how to - how do we unsettle the minds and touch the souls of significant numbers of young people who don't read texts or don't read my texts. Cornel West soul numbers people 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 christian joy giving 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 optimism black differences When we think of globalization we are thinking in part of structures and institutions that have been developed over time and that have allowed us to become more interdependent and interrelated. But the development, the extraordinary development, of those structures and institutions has not fundamentally transformed our humanity. We are still those animals with fears and anxieties and insecurities in the face of death and dread and disappointment and disease. Cornel West disappointment animal thinking The most important assets we have are our bodies and our energy which can be put to good use as resources in political activism for poor and working people. Cornel West political important people
