The need of black conservatives to gain the respect of their white peers deeply shapes certain elements of their conservatism. In this regard, they s… - Cornel West
" "The need of black conservatives to gain the respect of their white peers deeply shapes certain elements of their conservatism. In this regard, they simply want what most people want, to be judged by the quality of their skills, not by the color of their skin. But the black conservatives overlook the fact that affirmative action policies were political responses to the pervasive refusal of most white Americans to judge black Americans on that basis. (p52)
About Cornel West
Cornel Ronald West (born 2 June 1953 in Tulsa, Oklahoma) is an American philosopher, political activist, social critic, author, and public intellectual. The son of a Baptist minister, West focuses on the role of race, gender, and class in American society and the means by which people act and react to their "radical conditionedness." A radical democratic socialist, West draws intellectual contributions from multiple traditions, including Christianity, the black church, Marxism, neopragmatism, and transcendentalism. Among his most influential books are Race Matters (1994) and Democracy Matters (2004). He is currently running a third-party campaign in the 2024 United States presidential election.
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Additional quotes by Cornel West
In the American way of life pleasure involves comfort, convenience, and sexual stimulation. Pleasure, so defined, has little to do with the past and views the future as no more than a repetition of a hedonistically driven present. This market morality stigmatizes others as objects for personal pleasure or bodily stimulation. The reduction of individuals to objects of pleasure is especially evident in the culture industries — television, radio, video, music. Like all Americans, African Americans are influenced greatly by the images of comfort. These images contribute to the predominance of the market-inspired way of life over all others and thereby edge out nonmarket values — love, care, service to others — handed down by preceding generations. The predominance of this way of life among those living in poverty-ridden conditions, with a limited capacity to ward of self-contempt and self-hatred, results in the possible triumph of the nihilistic threat in black America.
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