Customer Reviews

Restoring Hope

5 star:		(2)
4 star:		(1)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

This work was like a good conversation. A bit pithy and cliched at times, it raises many important issues within the black American diaspora yet does not present any specific solutions. The reader definitely gains the sense that he or she is actually engaged in conversation with Dr. West and the other individual; however, just when the reader is about to put his two cents in, the chapter ends. The conversations with Pat Williams was the most enlightening. I guess, one could perceive the levity of the this work as optimism, a quality that earns the four stars. Definitely, a nightstand piece that preps you for a solution-oriented mind.

I love Cornel West! He's probably one of the most profound writers I've met! I'm almost done with this book, and I just feel like, if enough people read this book, they would feel enlightened to hope and reach out to other groups of people and respect each other, even if they may not fully understand who that person is.

In this book sociologist, Cornel West, decided to interview prominent figures in America in order to get their feelings on the future of black America. In this book West interviews Maya Angleou, Harry Belafonte, and Bill Bradley just to name a few. West deals with all aspects of black culture. He deals with the church, music, and literature all key in understanding black thought and history. Each person included the book has a unique perspective on what direction blacks are heading for in the future. This book's main thought is that even though black poverty is an American problem, blacks have risen up from hard times in the past and will continue to be a major part of this country.

Cornel West (born 1953) is a Professor at Princeton, a philosopher, magnificent speaker, best-selling author (e.g., Race Matters, Democracy Matters: Winning the Fight Against Imperialism, The American Evasion of Philosophy: A Genealogy of Pragmatism (Wisconsin Project on American Writers), etc.), and preeminent "public intellectual."

West writes in the Preface to this 1997 book, "This book is a kind of wake-up call to each of us. The country is in deep trouble. We need a moral prophetic minority of all colors who muster the courage to question the powers that be, the courage to be impatient with evil and patient with people, and the courage to fight for social justice. Such courage rests on a deep democratic vision of a better world that lures us and a blood-drenched hope that sustains us."

Here are some other quotations from the book:

"When you think of the institutions that the foremothers and forefathers organized and sustained, and then when you look at professional black people today and ask what institutions they have created and sustained, it's a joke. It's a joke! And it's partly because of levels of distrust. Before, in the past they bonded together against the odds. Which meant courage and love. And then they had more fun. They had more joy. Even though they're catching more hell." (Pg. 98)
(Wynton Marsalis) "I talk to students all the time. They say, 'Our music.' I have to say, 'Son, you don't have any music. There are people sixty years old putting out these things and determining what you're going to like. You didn't make that. There ain't no teenagers doing this." (Pg. 128)
"You know, when I think of hope, I think of courage, and I think what has kept black people hoping, the best of our tradition is hoping, has been both a certain courage to be and a courage to tell the truth about America." (Pg. 190)