The abnormal, the sick, the vicious have become more and more interwoven into the violent culture of the United States. Into the way news is seen, into the way movies are seen.

The government recognized immediately that Rap music has enormous revolutionary potential and politicians immediately came together to end it.

Freedom! you askin me about freedom. I'll be honest with you. I know a whole more about what freedom isn't than about what it is, 'cause I've never been free. I can only share my vision with you of the future, about what freedom is.

In my case, spirituality has been important to me because at periods in my life there's been very little else that I've had going. I've actually needed to call on, to feel the forces of good in this universe to be able to survive.

People are tried and convicted in the newspapers and on television before they ever see a courtroom.

As far as I was concerned, the Panthers were 'baaaaaad.' The Party was more than bad; it was bodacious. The sheer audacity of walking onto the California Senate floor with rifles, demanding that Black people have the right to bear arms and the right to self-defense, made me sit back and take a long look at them.

How lovely it is to live with a sense of community. To live where you can drop in the street and a million people will come and help you.