The capitalist culture of consumption... does not provide meaningful sustenance for large numbers of people.

I think Martin Luther King would always keep track of collective insurgencies among poor and working people. He was concerned about the treatment of Jews in the Soviet Union, for example. He would have closely followed the Arab Spring. And certainly he would be very critical of the massive surveillance state that has emerged in America in the last five to 10 years. He would have approved of the movements trying to gain some accountability in U.S. foreign policy, such as drones being (used) on innocent people. I think he would march against drones.

Black people have been working hard for decades.

You can't talk about truth unless you talk about yourself.

When you love poor people THAT MUCH, when you love 'working people' THAT MUCH, that makes you the freest man/woman in the country." - Cornel West in explaining that Obama is A fulfillment of MLK's dream not THE fulfillment of MLK's dream

To get up in the morning & do the monumental tasks that face us, our labor is best fueled by love.

In the practice of radical love, you are embracing human beings across the board, but you do give a preference - very much like Jesus - to the least of these, to the weak, to the vulnerable. That includes poor whites and poor browns, as well as the poor in black ghettos.