Racism is a moral catastrophe, most graphically seen in the prison industrial complex and targeted police surveillance in black and brown ghettos rendered invisible in public discourse.
Interpretation
Racism is a serious moral issue that is often overlooked, particularly in the context of systemic oppression affecting marginalized communities.
In this quote, Cornel West addresses the deep-seated moral failing of racism, particularly as it manifests through systemic structures like the prison industrial complex and targeted policing in predominantly black and brown neighborhoods. He highlights how these critical issues are frequently ignored in mainstream discussions, emphasizing the urgent need to confront and address the implications of racism in society.
In practice
To enrich discussions on social justice, one can use this quote at a community meeting focused on racial inequality.
King's response to our crisis can be put in one word: revolution. A revolution in our priorities, a reevaluation of our values, a reinvigoration of our public life and a fundamental transformation of our way of thinking and living that promotes a transfer of power from oligarchs and plutocrats to everyday people and ordinary citizens.
You've got to love yourself enough, not only so that others will be able to love you, but that you'll be able to love others.
Profound music leads us beyond language...to the dark roots of our scream and the celestial heights of our silence.
And when I talk about love, I'm talking about something that's great, though, brother. I'm talking about something that will sustain you.
Clever gimmicks of mass distraction yield a cheap soulcraft of addicted and self-medicated narcissists.
I feel as if I have been blessed to undergo a transformation from 'gangster' to 'redeemed sinner with gangster proclivities.'
Everything that depends on the action of nature is by nature as good as it can be.
If I were going to begin practicing the presence of God for the first time today, it would help to begin by admitting the three most terrible truths of our existence: that we are so ruined, and so loved, and in charge of so little.
A region is an area safely larger than the last one to whose problems we found no solution.
You see, gentlemen, reason is an excellent thing, thereβs no disputing that, but reason is nothing but reason and satisfies only the rational side of manβs nature, while will is a manifestation of the whole life, that is, of the whole human life including reason and all the impulses. And although our life, in this manifestation of it, is often worthless, yet it is life and not simply extracting square roots.
Evil has no substance of its own, but is only the defect, excess, perversion, or corruption of that which has substance.
Somewhere in the archives of crudest instinct is recorded the truth that it is better to be endangered and free than captive and comfortable.
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