“If your success is defined as being well adjusted to injustice and well adapted to indifference then we don’t want successful leaders. We want great leaders – who love the people enough and respect the people enough to be unsought, unbound, unafraid and unintimidated to tell the truth.”

Dr Cornel West, philosopher.

Notes

Since moving my website host on 13 June 2021, I cannot find the original source to this quote. It is widely cited, but I am unable to track down the original.

Professor West has said various iterations of this quote, but in slightly different ways.

His 1993 book, Race Matters, builds an argument about the flaws of Black elite leaders, which speak to similar themes of leadership and adjustment to injustice, as well as the status quo of politics, class, capitalism, racism, and white supremacy. For example:

‘Quality leadership is neither the product of one great individual nor the result of odd historical accidents. Rather, it comes from deeply bred traditions and communities that shape and mold talented and gifted persons. Without a vibrant tradition of resistance passed on to new generations, there can be no nurturing of a collective and critical consciousness—only professional conscientiousness survives. Where there is no vital community to hold up precious ethical and religious ideals, there can be no coming to a moral commitment—only personal accomplishment is applauded. Without a credible sense of political struggle, there can be no shouldering of a courageous engagement—only cautious adjustment is undertaken. If you stop to think in this way about the source of leadership, it becomes clear why there is such a lack of quality leadership in Black America today. This absence is primarily a symptom of Black distance from a vibrant tradition of resistance, from a vital community bonded by its ethical ideals, and from a credible sense of political struggle. Presently, Black middle-class life is principally a matter of professional conscientiousness, personal accomplishment, and cautious adjustment.’

Cornel West, Race Matters, 2001 [1993]: 37 (my emphasis)

In his 2009 book, Brother West: Living and Loving Out Loud, A Memoir, Professor West writes:

‘For us, Constantinian Christianity produces people well-adjusted to injustice and well-adapted to indifference. Prophetic Christianity produces people maladjusted to greed, indifference, and fear. We vowed to love our crooked neighbours with our crooked hearts. We believe that if the kingdom of God is within us, then everywhere we go we should leave a little heaven behind.’

Cornel West, Brother West: Living and Loving Out Loud, A Memoir, 2009: 100 (my emphasis)

Later in the book, he reflects on Race Matters:

‘I try to break down the reasons for the crisis in Black leadership. I say that Black leaders lack real righteous indignation and humility that arise from inner security. I point to three kinds of Black leaders—the race-effacing managerial types who thrive on political savvy; the race-identifying types who stay on Black turf and become power brokers with non-Blacks; and the race-transcending prophetic leaders, like Jesse Jackson in 1988, who demonstrate genuine vision and courage.’

Cornel West, Brother West: Living and Loving Out Loud, A Memoir, 2009: 171-172 (my emphasis)

In August 2009, in an interview with The Other Journal, Professor West is asked about his book, Hope on a Tightrope: Words and Wisdom (which does not include the quote in question). The interviewer asks about his favourite quote from the book, ‘I am no way optimistic, but I remain a prisoner of hope,’ and how this relates to West’s ideas on Christological love, hope, and compassion. The interviewer frames these ideas against ‘a world of capitalist commodification, fetishising, and death.’ Cornell responds:

‘Well, we just have to have courage more than anything else. Courage is the enabling virtue for any one of these virtues: faith, hope, and love. The courage to love and the courage to hope is where we must cut against the grain, where we must be willing to be a misfit. We must be maladjusted to injustice rather than well adjusted to injustice. Our society tries to convince us to be successful, to be well adjusted to injustice, but we have to call that into question. But most importantly, it has to do with the life we live, the love we manifest, and the quality of service that we render.’

Cornel West, interviewed by David Horstkoetter, The Other Journal, 16, online resource, August 2009 (my emphasis)

In December 2014, in an interview with the student-run weekly newspaper, City on a Hill Press, Professor West praised the young activists in Ferguson USA, who protested the murder of a young Black man, Michael Brown, killed by police, and who subsequently sparked the Black Lives Matter movement. Speaking against the ‘repressive apparatus of the United States,’ West says young people should be ‘courageous seekers of truth’ and stand up against the status quo:

‘To be successful in America is to be well adjusted to injustice… I don’t want to know what you’re adjusted to, I want to know what you’re faithful to.’

Cornel West, interviewed by Montse Reyes, ‘Reflections on Injustice,’ City on a Hill Press, 5 December 2014.

In September 2017, in his Convocation Address for the Harvard Divinity School, Professor West reflected on how ‘Martin Luther King, Jr. had to cut against the grain in the Black church.’ He says Black churches at the time ‘were terrorised and scared’ to publicly speak out against white supremacy:

‘Most of the history of religion has been religious institutions accommodating themselves to structures of domination and reinforcing envy and resentment and hatred. But as religious people, we have no higher ground in terms of our tradition. The only higher ground we have is earned in terms of what kind of lives we’ve lived, what kind of sacrifices we have made, what kind of costs we’re willing to bear. Martin Luther King, Jr. didn’t speak on behalf of all the Black church. Most of the Black church was terrorised and they were scared […] and afraid that they walk around with their backs humped over, and laughing when it ain’t funny, and scratching when it don’t itch, and wearing a mask, and just trying to fit in and be well-adjusted to injustice, rather than maladjusted to injustice. Martin Luther King, Jr. had to cut against the grain in the Black church. Rabbi Heschel had to cut against the grain when it came to Jewish synagogues. Dorothy Day had to cut against the grain when it came to the great Catholic tradition. We can go on and on and on. Bell Hooks, Buddhist, she’s cutting against the grain, in more ways than one, and not in a self-righteous way at their behest, but through soulful kenosis.’

Cornel West, ‘Spiritual Blackout, Imperial Meltdown, Prophetic Fightback,’ Convocation Address, Harvard Divinity School, 08 September 2017 (my emphasis)

In November 2017, in his interview with The New York Times, Professor West was asked about his book, Race Matters. He says:

‘Well, I was talking about the crisis of Black elite leadership. When it comes to Black leaders, if the model is to be successful but not publicly attack white supremacy — well, then that’s really about success to fit in. Fitting in, in a neoliberal world, is to be well adjusted to injustice.’

Cornel West, interviewed by Audie Cornish, The New York Times, 29 November 2017 (my emphasis)

In February 2018, Professor West gave the Black History Month Keynote lecture at Yale University. His visit celebrates the 25th anniversary of Race Matters. A university news article quoted his lecture, where he critiques USA President Barack Obama, grammy-winning Black artists, and other elites whom he sees are neglecting underprivileged Black people. In his lecture, he says there is a ‘spiritual blackout’ in which the path to success means ignoring systematic injustice.

‘The whole generation cannot wait to be high and exceptional but doesn’t understand how to fight… Polished professionals are very smart, but most of them are well adjusted to injustice and well adapted to indifference.’

Cornel West, cited by Serena Cho, ‘West Decries Elitism in Lecture,’ Yale News, 4 February, 2018 (my emphasis)

In November 2018, Professor West was interviewed about his falling out with President Obama.

‘The rule of big money and the rule of the military industrial complex; you gotta remember now for every dollar spent in the US budget, 53 cents goes straight to the military industrial complex. So they already have—they already feel very truncated and narrowed. If it is the case that America can no longer generate high quality leadership or states persons of integrity, then democracy is just sliding down a slippery slope to chaos, and that means not just anarchy, that means tyrants—tyrannical rule. Plato becomes right. Every democracy produces a demos [the people] that’s driven by unruly passion and ubiquitous ignorance that becomes gullible to a strongman. And so you end up with a tyrant who takes over and democracy goes under. Slowly but surely it goes under. We’re already seeing signs of that under Trump.

‘So I refuse to believe that given all the magnificent human beings in this country, full of unbelievable imagination, intelligence, courage, that the best we can do is the kind of mediocre and under-mediocre leadership that we have right now. If that is the best we can do, then you know, something very precious is coming to an end. Democracy is very fragile, very fragile.’

Cornel West, interviewed by Peter Kunhardt, ‘Obama,’ Kunhardt Film Foundation, 15 November 2018 (my emphasis)

Professor West has continued to say variations of the quote in question over the years.

In December 2024, in an interview, Professor West reflects on USA President Donald Trump, and the impact of a political and corporate duopoly that neglects poor and working-class people. Asked about how to face what then became the first four years of the Trump Administration, West says:

‘Well, I think the first thing you want to do is continually try to see, think and feel deeply the suffering, as well as the resilience and resistance, of those who suffer. Philosophically, it means that we must recognise that we are a wretched species that for most of human history is what philosopher Hegel called a slaughterhouse, and what historian Edward Gibbon said is the register of human crimes and follies and misfortunes. And in fact, it’s very rare that the demos, which is to say, those that Sly Stone calls everyday people, are able to gain access to organisational capacity, to create a disruption or interruption of the rule of organised greed and weaponised hatred, the rule of domination, the rule of exploitation, the rule of subjugation and degradation, especially, of course, regarding those who find themselves of African descent, or women, or gay brothers and lesbian sisters and precious trans people, or Jews in an anti-Jewish world, or the Turks, or the Muslims in an anti-Turk and anti-Muslim world.

‘But that doesn’t mean that given our overwhelming wretchedness we end up like a Jonathan Swift or Mark Twain, and say that the human race has very little, even no potential. No, we’re also a wonderful species. We have the ability to see and feel and think deeply and differently and muster the courage — because selling out has become so normalised these days, especially among the professional strata in the U.S. empire — to organise, bear witness and fight with words on the page, bodies in the street, songs sung, jokes told, laughter expressed — all of the various forms of resistance and resilience. But those moments of interruption are very, very fleeting, brother. They’re very fleeting. Shakespeare used to say that human life itself in many ways, human history itself, was a flickering candle against the backdrop of the dim barbarism of the species. And Shakespeare is no joke. He’s got some very profound things to say. That’s why Anton Chekhov in some ways is the most exemplary artist of our day. He is the grand artist of catastrophe, very much like a blues musician.

‘So, what do we do? Well, the first thing that we must do is to get our spirits and souls intact, so we don’t give up, we don’t cave in, we don’t sell out. We don’t rationalise our accommodation to an unjust status quo. We don’t become well-adjusted to injustice and well-adapted to indifference; rather, we think, act, feel radically against the grain, even when it looks as if we have the chance of a snowball in hell. We are with Harriet Tubman. We do it because we love. We do it because we have a calling. We do it because we think it’s right and moral. And then we have an analysis of the imperial, and the capitalist, and the white supremacist, and the xenophobic forces that have so deeply shaped the history and destiny of the species. Mighty, but they are not almighty. There’s always, as William James might say, something more, that tremendous muchness that has to do with our ability to still try to tell the truth, still try to seek justice for the least of these. And we must still try to organize, even though it looks as if we have little success at the moment.’

Cornel West, interviewed by George Yancy, ‘Cornel West: We Must Keep Our Souls Intact as We Organise Under Trump Again,’ Truthout, 1 December 2024 (my emphasis)

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This page was last updated 16 July 2026.