Cornel West Quotes

We can solve a housing problem or we can try to solve a racial problem. But we cannot combine the two.

The challenge throughout has been to tell what I view as the truth about racism without causing disabling despair.

The unhappy persistence of both the practice and the lingering effects of racial discrimination ...is an unfortunate reality...and the government is not disqualified from acting in response to it.

Poverty, ignorance and degradation are the combined evils, these constitute the social disease of the free colored people of the US.

It is a lie that America is racist

The only thing I really feel is necessary is that the black people, not only in Mississippi, will have to actually upset this applecart. What I mean by that is, so many things are under the cover that will have to be swept out and shown to this whole world, not just to America. This thing they say of "the land of the free and the home of the brave" is all on paper.

Round and round will Americans be compelled to ride on a mindless, manufactured, racial carousel... for without it, the edifice of an industry built upon grievance and excuse-making is destined to collapse.

The common enemy is the white man.

I think there's an awakening now of a realization that we too early congratulated ourselves on the end of racial prejudice and white supremacy. And that was a feeling that we had when I was president, that we had pretty much overcome that problem.

The black socks [on me at Olympics in 1968] emphasized the fact that we had so many Blacks and people of color here in the United States, the greatest country in the world, that was running around in poverty every day, so we wanted to illustrate the fact that these individuals did not have shoes and they had to walk 20 miles to and from school every day with no shoes in the greatest country in the world.

I'm writing about the things I see all around me. Growing up in Mississippi, I've seen how these backward ideas about class and race and healthcare and education and housing and racism impact everyday lives. For example, my mother wouldn't let me go to my homecoming dance because the yacht club where they were having the dance threw a fundraiser for David Duke, an ex-Klan member, when he was running for governor of Louisiana. So I grew up seeing how personal politics could be.

The patterns have become unmistakable and undeniable. ... We have to come to terms with some hard truths about race and justice in America.

I think the central theme about black society is that it has got elements of a defeated society

Denying racism is the new racism.

If I’m a young black man in South Central L.A., where poverty is rampant and unemployment is skyrocketing, I see that Washington’s promises of a year ago have gone unfulfilled, I see that perhaps for a second time, the court’s inability to mete out justice in a blind fashion, why shouldn’t I vent my anger?

Since the white people collectively have practiced the worst form of hatred against Negroes in America and they know that they are guilty of it, now when The Honorable Elijah Muhammad comes along and begins to list the historic deed - the historic attitude, the historic behavior of the white man in this country toward the black people in this country, again, the white people are so guilty and they can't stop doing these things to make Mr. Muhammad appear to be wrong, so they hide their wrong by saying "he is teaching hatred."

You mix the affluence of the white and the poverty of the black and you do not get a civilized society. Integration on an equal level is one thing. Mixing on an unequal level is another.

There are still horrible things that go on because of the myth of race, but we don't have to succumb totally.

As a matter of fact since Barack Obama has been president it is more overt - I believe - than it's been since the 1940's and 50's and so I am not surprised by it. I think it's an excellent teaching tool, particular for my sons and our people to understand that we still have to build within our community. We still have to work with one another. We still have to connect even with people outside of this country.

I think "post-racial" is a dangerous trap. You can fall into complacency and give your complicity a much more dangerous character.

Racial problems can't be easily reconciled with a pat account about racism and discrimination that lets us sort of relax into saying when we finally get this right, when we get rid of racism, when we reach the post-racial society, everything is going to be okay. Well, no, because along the way here, as we've not yet been in this racial nirvana, facts on the ground have been created.

If the white man ain't the devil, he's been aiming at the history of the Americans.

Telling me that I’m obsessed with talking about racism in America is like telling me I’m obsessed with swimming when I’m drowning.