Cornel West Quotes

I cannot imagine where we would have been without BET. Many like me who operate in black America can only get our balanced story told nationally on BET talk shows.

Where is the raised voice of black America? Why are we mute?

Dear Non-American Black, when you make the choice to come to America, you become black. Stop arguing. Stop saying I'm Jamaican or I'm Ghanaian. America doesn't care.

The way I was taught, being black was a plus, always. Being a human being, being in America, and being black, all three were the greatest things that could happen to you. The combination was unbeatable.

There's a class divide in black America that doesn't seem to trouble black Americans so much, but whites use it and exploit it. The progress of a few is allowed to stand for the progress of everyone. We can't afford that kind of disaffection at the moment.

I never said I wasn’t Black… I want to make that very clear. I said, I am not African-American. I never expected my personal beliefs and comments to spark such emotion in people. I think it is only positive when we can openly discuss race and being labeled in America.

Young black men in America have an identity ascribed to them that is a direct legacy of slavery.

Let's start with the black glove. We felt it necessary being the fact that the Olympic Games, for the first time ever [in 1968], had been televised worldwide. The second thing is the fact that it was in Technicolor. Never had the games been shown in color before.We wanted it to be understood that we were representing America, but we were representing Black America in particular, so that's why we put the black glove on.

When is black America going to forgive white America for slavery?

I think that the Vietnam War era is important because we tend not to want to revisit it. For black people, there was the temptation of disaffection. People looked for alternative ways to express themselves personally and politically, people doubted the system, and there was the terrible kind of division in black America between a radical leadership and a much older, compromising leadership.

When black America is on the move, America is on the move.

In America, the traditional routes to black identity have hardly been normal. Suicide (disappearance by imitation, or willed extinction), violence (hysterical religiosity, crime, armed revolt), and exemplary moral courage; none of these is normal.

To be black and conscious in America is to be in a constant state of rage.

They say African Americans. I say black people. I've only been to Africa once. I've been in America all my life!

In America now every romantic comedy is interpreted politically. I can remember when I was promoting Black Hawk Down we were all being asked what it said about September 11th. Well, it was shot before that happened, so, nothing.

I want to emphasize the idea of black as intellectuality and conventionality.

I'm very pro-America, but I feel it necessary to keep in touch with Europe to maintain a perspective.

Let me state here and now that the black woman in America can justly be described as a 'slave of a slave.

Being a black rapper is like being a Southern, socialite woman: You're always worried about appearances.

Part of the history of black people in the western hemisphere, in some ways, has been fleeing from this notion that they were black. So I can represent an ideal, and with that, you can demonstrate that there is nothing to be afraid of, nothing to run from, and that, in fact, a good deal of beauty that resides there.

Nietzsche was so intelligent and advanced. And that's how I am. I'm the black, basketball-playing Nietzsche.

We, the Black people of America, were chosen by Allah: Not to be "special" in the sense that we are better than others, but chosen because of the uniqueness of our position inside of America, and 460 years under slavery, neo-slavery, and injustice, to carry a message to the whole of humanity.

Beauty has always been an ​element of discussion for black women, whether or not we were the ones having the conversation​. Out of necessity, black women have always had to consider others' perceptions of a certain beauty ideal, just starting with the skin color.

Marvel Comics announced that the next Captain America will be black. He has the same powers as white Captain America, except he has to show I.D. when he votes.

Every Black woman in America lives her life somewhere along a wide curve of ancient and unexpressed angers.