Cornel West: Race and Democracy in the Age of Obama
Kenyon College
February 18, 2011

• Human is from the Latin “humando,” or burying. We are a race disappearing from history - Who are you going to be in the meantime between the womb and the tomb?
• we should be turning the soul from the superficial to the substantial
• memory, history, and reality are forms of mortality
• be suspicious of sanitized discourses: a condition of truth is to allow suffering to speak
• indifference is the essence of inhumanity
• do you know the difference between success and greatness?
• education is a right, not a race
• if you choose to be a certain kind of human being, you have to raise your voice. You cannot be an echo.
• hope is not the same as optimism. justice is not revenge. 
• be a blues woman or a blues man: no people have a monopoly over that.