Growing up as a black kid with a white father who loves you, who affirms you, who was part of your life is fundamentally different than what black people in my family were subjected to in the 19th century or the 18th century. But unfortunately, it doesn't change the old racial order. I think we need to let the old racial order just stay where it is and not seek to improve upon it. Not try to create more racial categories, because all that does is it makes a race stick around longer.

The beauty of being black in American society is that black has always been an inclusive definition. White has always been an exclusive definition. I think one of the challenges for white people is to figure out how to have a more inclusive picture of who their families are, of who they are.

In order to bring down the incarceration rate, you've got to start with the beginning of life. You've got to make sure that parents and schools are prepared to prepare young people for success. You've got to deal with the next stage of life. You've got to make sure that people have the opportunity to work at a good job, they have access to good healthcare, and that they have the opportunity to build wealth over time.

The right to vote is the right upon which all of our rights are leveraged - and without which none can be protected.

Let us nurture the practice of family values, by embracing policies that value families.

In this nation, the greatest of all nations, there are no second-class families. That is our great American conviction.

I was raised in a family where we were taught that the best thing you could do with your life was to really kind of push the cause of progress and justice and human rights forward.