“I just want to be a part of that tradition of love warriors. Malcolm was a part of it, Martin was a part of it, Fannie Lou Hamer was a part of it. Billie Holiday was a part of it. And it doesn’t mean that we’re pure. It doesn’t mean that we’re better than anybody else. It just means that we had the vision and imagination to dish out unbelievable forms of love while being so thoroughly hated for so long. I would say the same thing about being terrorized for four hundred years and teaching the world so much about freedom (42:00).”
– Cornel West, episode 196 on Talk Easy with Sam Fragoso
As election day approaches, philosopher, public intellectual, and Harvard professor Cornel West joins us for a state of the union. We discuss the challenges of 2020 (06:42), our neofascist gangster President (8:37), his “Robin Hood-like sensibility” (11:30), Dostoevsky’s grim view of civilization (16:25), discovering our purpose from womb-to-tomb (21:22), and the legacy of being a “jazz man” (30:11) who fights for justice, love and freedom (35:14). To close, a reading Giacomo Leopardi’s Wild Broom.
The References of Cornel West:
- John Coltrane’s A Love Supreme.
- Isley Brother’s Caravan of Love.
- Three Sisters by Chekov.
- Wild Broom by Giacomo Leopardi.
- Worstward by Samuel Beckett.
- Fear and Trembling by Soren Kierkegaard
- Cornel in New York Magazine and Rolling Stone.
Illustrations by: Krishna Shenoi.
Music by: Dylan Peck
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