Cornel West Biography | Dr Cornel West
Cornel West is an American philosopher, author, social critic, political activist and public intellectual. West who is the son of a Baptist minister focuses on the role of race, gender, and class in American society and the means by which people act and react to their “complete conditionedness.” He is a democrat and democratic socialist who draws intellectual contributions from multiple traditions, that include Marxism, Christianity, neopragmatism, the black church and transcendentalism. The books ‘Race Matters’ (1994) and ‘Democracy Matters’ (2004) are among his most influential books.
West has been critical of the members of the Democratic Party, and this includes former President Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton, being an outspoken in the left-wing politics. Apart from commenting on politics, West co-hosted a radio program with Tavis Smiley from 2010 to 2013. The program was called Smiley and West.
He has as well featured in several documentaries, and made appearances in Hollywood films such as The Matrix Reloaded and The Matrix Revolutions, for which he provided commentary. He was once named MTV’s Artist of the Week for his spoken word work as well as hip hop albums.
Professor Cornel West
He has also been a professor at the following universities: Harvard University, Yale University, Princeton University, Pepperdine University, Union Theological Seminary, and the University of Paris. You can also find him an various media outlets as a commentator on politics and social issues.
Cornel West Age
West was born on 2nd June 1953 in Tulsa, Oklahoma, United States. He is 65 years old as of 2018.
Cornel West Education
Growing up in Sacramento, California, The Matrix Reloaded commentator attended John F. Kennedy High School till he graduated from the school. After high school in 1970, West enrolled at Harvard College and took classes from philosophers Robert Nozick and Stanley Cavell. He graduated from the college in 1973 in Near Eastern languages and civilization. He then joined Princeton University and received a Ph.D in 1980. This made him the first African American to graduate from Princeton with a Ph.D. in philosophy.
At Princeton, West was heavily influenced by Richard Rorty’s neopragmatism and the two remained friends for many years even after West’s graduation. His title of dissertation was Ethics, historicism and the Marxist tradition, later revised to be The Ethical Dimensions of Marxist Thought.
Cornel West Family
Clifton West Cornel West
He was born as Cornel Ronald West to Clifton Louis West Jr., a general contractor for the Defense Department and Irene B. West, a teacher and principal. The school known as Irene B. West Elementary School in Elk Grove, California, is named after his mother. He has one brother, Clifton West.
Dr Cornel West Wife | Cornel West Spouse | Cornel West Partner
Dr. West has married three times and divorced the same number of times. He got married to his first wife Hilda Holloman, in 1977 and together they have one son, Clifton Louis. He later married a second wife in 1981. Her name, Romona Santiago but it also ended in divorce. His third wife was Elleni Gebre Amlak, to whom he still pays alimony. He has a daughter, Zeytun who lives in Bonn, Germany.
Cornel West Children
West is a father of two. Clifton Louis born in 1977 is West’s first child and only son. He is a result of West’s marriage to his first wife, Holloman. He has a daughter too named Dilan Zeytun West born on 11th November 2000. She was born of a “love relationship,” as he calls it, with a Kurdish journalist who was at Harvard on a Nieman Fellowship. Currently, Zeytun lives in Germany and West supports her.
Cornel West Books
| Year | Book Title |
|---|---|
Cornel West Race Matters
Race Matters is a social sciences book by philosopher Cornel West. The book was first published on April 1, 1993 by Beacon Press. It analyzes moral authority and racial debates concerning skin color in the United States.
Originally published: 1993
Author: Cornel West
Page count: 159
Genre: Social science
Country: United States of America
Editor: Cornel West
You can get it from Amazon by clicking here.
Cornel West Movies
Cornel West Matrix
The Matrix is a science fiction action media franchise created by The Wachowskis. It is about heroes who fight a desperate war against machine overlords that have enslaved humanity in an extremely sophisticated virtual reality system. It was released in 1999 as the series feature film and continued with two sequels, The Matrix Reloaded and The Matrix Revolutions (both 2003), all written and directed by The Wachowskis and produced by Joel Silver.
In the films The Matrix Reloaded and The Matrix Revolutions, the professor appears as Councillor West and provides the voice for this character in the video game Enter the Matrix. He also provides philosophical commentary on all three Matrix films in The Ultimate Matrix Collection, together with integral theorist Ken Wilber.
Cornel West Net Worth
He has an estimated net worth of $500,000 as of 2018.
Cornel West Quotes
Above the many quotes by Cornel West, below are some of them:
- We have to recognise that there cannot be relationships unless there is commitment, unless there is loyalty
- Unless there is love, patience, persistence.
Never forget that justice is what love looks like in public. - You can’t lead the people if you don’t love the people.
- You can’t save the people if you don’t serve the people.
- I cannot be an optimist but I am a prisoner of hope.
- I have tried to be a man of letters in love with ideas in order to be a wiser and more loving person, hoping to leave the world just a little better than I found it.
- Empathy is not simply a matter of trying to imagine what others are going through, but having the will to muster enough courage to do something about it. In a way, empathy is predicated upon hope.
- To be a Christian is to live dangerously, honestly, freely – to step in the name of love as if you may land on nothing, yet to keep on stepping because the something that sustains you no empire can give you and no empire can take away.
Cornel West Obama
West publicly supported 2008 Democratic presidential candidate, the then Senator Barack Obama. He even addressed over 1,000 of his supporters at the Apollo Theater in Harlem on November 29, 2007.
However, West criticized the former President when he won the Nobel Peace Prize in 2009, saying that it would be difficult for Obama to be “a war president with a peace prize”. West further withdrew his support for Obama in an April 2011 interview referring Obama as a Black mascot of Wall Street oligarchs and a black muppet of corporate plutocrats and now because he has become head of the American killing machine he is proud of it. West said in an interview that he considered Obama a Rockefeller Republican in blackface.
West referred Obama’s speech in 2013 at the 50th anniversary celebration of Martin Luther King’s ‘I Have a dream’ as contradictory and as pretty words that hide ugly deeds. West stated that Martin Luther King Jr. had a dream while Obama got drones while Martin Luther King Jr. had prophetic missions Barack Obama got deadly missiles that he’s ready to use.
West in 2014, he gave an interview slamming Obama, referring him as a counterfeit who posed as a progressive. He went further to define Obams’s presidency as a Wall Street presidency, a drone presidency, a national security presidency.
Cornel West Hillary Clinton
For United States 2016 presidenttial election, West had shown support for Democratic contender Bernie Sanders and after Sanders exit from the presidential race, he endorsed Jill Stein, a Green Party nominee and her running mate Ajamu Baraka. He referred to Democratic nominee Hillary Clinton as a “neoliberal disaster,” and accused Clinton of posing as a progressive.