Samar > Recent Status Updates

why didn't we know all this?

Relentless...

Teachable moments do not just happen in the classroom. They are shot through everyday life and take place in a variety of contexts. To be teachable is to muster the courage to listen generously, think critically, and be open to the ambiguity and mystery of life.

"My conclusion became my calling: that justice is what love looks like in public, just as deep democracy is what justice looks like in practice. When you love people, you hate the fact that they're being treated unjustly. Justice is not simply an abstract concept to regulate institutions, but also a fire in the bones to promote the well-being of all."

"The larger question goes to the nature of academic engagement...I want to move away from narrow elitism and address the larger culture. I want to reach youth culture. Without sacrificing scholarly excellence, I want to bridge the gap between what's happening in the ivory towers and what's happening in the hoods. Young folk of all colors and classes need to know that we're concerned and invoved in their lives."

Porfessor Summers, I am glad to meet with you whenever you like. You're the president of Harvard and, as such, you're surely entitled to met a faculty memeber whenever you like. But if you think that I'm going to trot in here every two weeks t be monitored like a miscreant graduate student, I'm afraid, my brother, that you've messed with the wrong brother."

"For me it is an honor to be associated with hip-hop. Isn't our mission to relate to the young, make them curious, challenge their minds and excite their imaginations. My album contains many musical forms but it is tied to the struggle for freedom. I counldn't be prouder of it."

p 190 "that's when stuff hit the fan."

p 173 "Malcolm X wasn't comfortable being what I term a jazzman...By that I mean someone who can deal with the world as an iproviser, maintaining a fluid and flexible outlook while realizing that the either/or , absolutist, and supremacist mindsets lead to spiritual dead-ends."

p 172 "the double consciousness idea expressed by W.E.B. Du Bois - an idea that says, in essence, we're looking at ourselves through the eyes of others who devalue us."

p 166 "What I saw in Ethiopia was a people who have never been colonized by Europeans...They're free of the mind manipulations engineered by white supermacists. They've never been fooled into believing they're less than human. The result is a feeling of self-assurance. They understand the value of their deep culture and unique civilization."

On p 171 "I say that black leaders lack real righteous indignation and humility that arise from inner security."

"Towards the depressed, society gives no such instruction, no such sanction. Grief and depression have always been part of the human condition, yet we treat them differently. The rituals of grief defend against alienation. Depression by its nature alienates.

"My thoughts did not dwell on the pointlessness of life; they dwelled, instead, on the pain of missing a life. Hope can find a place in a mind missing love. It cannot find a place in a mind taken over by depression. In grief, one feels the absence of a life, not life itself. In depression, it is otherwise; one cannot access the beat of life."

This books is starting to irritate me; a great pity really since I have always loved Cornell West.

"and we were so glad that the white sister told the truth. Her example convinced me even more how sublime the courage to bear witness to truth and justice can be."

"That's when, even tat this early age, the question kicked in;is it possible to love oppressed people and not be a fanatic for fairness?"

amazing already...inspiring and uplifting and this is still chapter 2.