Cornel West "Gifts of the Black Folk part II"

These are some of my favorite quotes from Cornel West's podcast "Gifts From The Black Folk" partII. I chose these particular quotes because I understood them the first time I heard the podcast. These quotes speak for themselvs. Many other parts I liked but I had to re-listen to them to fully understand. The following quotes jumped out at me right from the start, I can relate with them on a more personal level.

25:15
“…since 911 we all feel unsafe, unprotected subject to random violence, and hated for who we are, that the whole nation has become “niggerized” in a particular way. When I look at the American people I see American citizens being constituted the way niggers once were. Intimidated, fearful, subject to manipulation, lied to, and if you oppose the lie you are called a liar. Under control and surveillance, and if you resisted control and surveillance you become the traitor. Mechanisms of torture. You critique the torture, you become unpatriotic, and black folks say “been here before”, “heard this kind of language before.”…”

31:50
“Maturity is always about mastering the courage to look forms of death in the face and not to hold it at arms length and escape from it but work though it. That’s precisely why life, affirmation is rooted in facing forms of death.”

36:20
“How do we engage in critical reflection, questioning integration, muster the courage to think so critically for ourselves that we’re willing to think against the grain: outside of the box. To be non-conformists to fundamentally believe that there is something about intellectual integrity as an intrinsic value and therefore on openness to a variety of different perspectives because we acknowledge the abundance of the inexhaustible variety of the way in which people view the world and therefore: we must listen to one another.”

54:40
“You can’t talk about the gifts of black folk unless you’re willing to talk about things that you are willing to live and die fore, and I’m not saying martyrdom is normative, but somebody’s got to do it. It’s the very blood of such folk that fertilize the possibility for democratic change and transformation of the next generation…”