Cornel West Biography
Cornel Ronald West is a public figure in the United States who wears many hats. He is an American philosopher, political activist, social critic, actor, and public intellectual. West’s work focuses on analyzing the role of race, gender, and class in American society, and how individuals respond to their “radical conditionedness.”
As a socialist, he draws inspiration from a wide variety of intellectual traditions, including Christianity, Marxism, neopragmatism, and transcendentalism. Some of his most influential books include Race Matters (1994) and Democracy Matters (2004).
West is known for his outspoken views in left-wing politics in the United States. Throughout his career, he has held academic positions at numerous universities, including Harvard, Yale, Princeton, and the University of Paris. He has also been a commentator on politics and social issues in various media outlets.
West co-hosted a radio program with Tavis Smiley called Smiley and West from 2010 to 2013. He has appeared in several documentaries and Hollywood films, including The Matrix Reloaded and The Matrix Revolutions, where he also provided commentary. West has also released spoken word and hip hop albums and was named MTV’s Artist of the Week. He currently co-hosts a podcast called The Tight Rope with Tricia Rose. West is known for his conversations with Robert P. George, a prominent conservative intellectual, where the two discuss topics such as liberal arts education, free speech, and civil dialogue. In 2020, Prospect magazine named him the fourth-greatest thinker for the COVID-19 era.
Cornel West Age
West was born on 2 June 1953 in Tulsa, Oklahoma, United States. He is 70 years old as of 2023.
Cornel West Family
He is the son of Irene B. West, a former EGUSD teacher and principal, and Clifton, Louis West Jr., a former general contractor for the Department of Defense. He has a brother Clifton West. The pastor of the Tulsa Metropolitan Baptist Church was his grandfather, Clifton L. West Sr. Irene B. West Elementary School is named after his mother in Elk Grove, California.
Cornel West Wife and Children
Cornel Ronald West has been married several times throughout his life. His first marriage was to Hilda Holloman in 1977, but they later divorced. West then married Ramona Santiago in 1981, but they also divorced around 1986. He later married Elleni Gebre Amlak in 1992, but they also divorced.
In 2015, West married Leslie Kotkin, but they divorced in 2018. Currently, West is married to Annahita Mahdavi, whom he wed in 2021.
Cornel West Net Worth
Cornel West is a prominent American philosopher, political activist, and public intellectual who has made substantial contributions to the field of African American studies. He was born on June 2, 1953, in Tulsa, Oklahoma and grew up in a family that valued education and activism. Dr. West attended Harvard University, where he earned his Ph.D. in Philosophy and became one of the youngest tenured professors in the history of Princeton University.
Despite his academic achievements and public speaking engagements, Cornel West’s net worth is estimated at $1 million according to reliable sources. Although this may seem low for someone of his caliber, it’s important to note that Dr. West has dedicated much of his life to social justice causes rather than personal financial gain.
Cornel West Education
At John F. Kennedy High School, he completed high school. In 1970, after graduating from high school, he enrolled at Harvard College and took lessons from the philosophers Robert Nozick and Stanley Cavell. West received a degree from Harvard magna cum laude in Near Eastern languages and culture in 1973. After completing his undergraduate studies at Harvard, West enrolled at Princeton University, where he received a Ph.D. Degree in 1980, becoming the first African American to graduate from Princeton with a Ph.D. In philosophy.
Cornel West House
His house is located in Princeton, New Jersey (NJ), in the USA. Images of his home are not accessible due to privacy.
Cornel West Barack Obama
West also spoke about the lack of adequate black leadership and how it is leading black communities to doubt their political capacity to ensure change. In 2008, Cornel West publicly supported the Democratic presidential candidate, Senator Barack Obama. West further reversed his support for Obama in an interview in April 2011, saying Obama is a black mascot of Wall Street oligarchs and a black Muppet of corporate plutocrats. And now he has become an American killing machine, and he is proud of it. West claimed in a November 2012 interview that he considered Obama in blackface to be a Rockefeller Republican.
In 2011, Smiley & West West West participated in a ‘Poverty Show’ with Tavis Smiley, his co-host on the Public Radio International program. The stated purpose of the tour was to highlight the plight of the impoverished population of the United States, whose candidates West and Smiley said had ignored the plight of the poor, prior to the 2012 presidential election. West referred to Obama’s speech as contradictory and as pretty words that hide nasty deeds at the 50th-anniversary celebration of Martin Luther King Jr.’s I Have a Dream address in 2013.
Cornel West Princeton
With the exception of expressing hope that West would continue at Harvard, Summers declined to comment on the specifics of his conversation with West. West was treated for prostate cancer soon afterward. West noticed that until weeks after his procedure, Summers refused to give him get-well wishes, though newly elected Princeton President Shirley Tilghman had contacted him regularly before and after his treatment.
West left Harvard University in 2002 in order to return to Princeton. In public interviews, West lashed out at Summers, calling him “the Ariel Sharon of higher education” on the Tavis Smiley Show of NPR. In response to these remarks, five members of the Princeton faculty, led by Jacques Robert Fresco, professor of molecular biology, said they looked at Summers with “extreme disadvantage over his characterization” and that “such a comparison brings innuendos and implications … th …”
Cornel West Politics
West described himself as a “non-Marxist socialist” and serves as honorary chairman of the Democratic Socialists of America, which he described as “the first multiracial, socialist group close enough to my politics that I could join”.
West argues that the overthrow of the ugly totalitarian government of Saddam Hussein was desirable,” but that the war in Iraq was the product of the Bush administration’s “dishonest manipulation. “He claims that the hawks of the Bush administration” are not merely conservative elites and right-wing ideologues, “but are” evangelical nihilists, power-drunk and motivated by great delusions. In 2008, in the documentary Call+Response, West contributed his observations into the emerging global problem of modernized slavery and trafficking in humans. West is a member of the Movement for Peace and Democracy.
Cornel West Book
- 1994 Keeping Faith: Philosophy and Race in America
- 1995 Jews and Blacks: A Dialogue on Race, Religion, and Culture in America
- 1997 The Future of the Race
- 1997 Restoring Hope: Conversations on the Future of Black America
- 1998 The War Against Parents: What We Can Do for America’s Beleaguered Moms and Dads
- 1998 The Future of American Progressivism
- 2000 The African-American Century: How Black Americans Have Shaped Our Century
- 2004 Democracy Matters: Winning the Fight Against Imperialism
- 2004 Commentary on The Matrix, The Matrix Reloaded and The Matrix Revolutions; see The Ultimate Matrix Collection
- 2008 Hope on a Tightrope: Words & Wisdom
- 2009 Brother West: Living & Loving Out Loud
- 2012 The Rich and the Rest of Us: A Poverty Manifesto
- 2012 Pro+Agonist: The Art of Opposition
- 2014 Black Prophetic Fire
