It's a funny thing, in the US we all believe that we have a right to go to school. We have a right to a good education. And we don't. The U.S. Constitution contains no right for a child to go to school, let alone for a child to go to a good school. And yet, we know that if they don't go to a good school, they're less likely to be able to realize all that this country has to offer.

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.

When somebody says the best thing you can do is be tough, the best thing you can do is use your brute force, then we're selling ourselves short.

Let us invest less and less in war and tax cuts for the richest 1 percent, and more and more in jobs and schools for the other 99 percent.

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

Racial profiling punishes innocent individuals for the past actions of those who look and sound like them. It misdirects crucial resources and undercuts the trust needed between law enforcement and the communities they serve. It has no place in our national discourse, and no place in our nation's police departments.

When you're smart on crime, you start off by recognizing that both the victim, first of all, the victim, but also the person who did the crime are both human.