Dunbar-Ortiz strips us of our forged innocence, shocks us into new awareness, and draws a straight line from the sins of our fathers-settler-colonialism, the doctrine of discovery, the myth of manifest destiny, white supremacy, theft and systematic killing-to the contemporary condition of permanent war, invasion and occupation, mass incarceration, and the constant use and threat of state violence.

Living in a bubble as I said in a featherbed of privilege. That's why leaving home, leaving the prep school and going to the University of Michigan in the early '60s was a moment of awakening and to go to a place like Michigan and to see suddenly a world in flames and the injustices all around was quite a wake up call. I lasted a year and a half at Michigan before I dropped out and joined the merchant marines and I was a merchant marine for my sophomore year then I came back to Michigan.

Without a doubt. It's woven into our DNA in a very deep way and so to kind of be smacked in the face with the hypocrisy of the America that we were sold was a liberating and harsh experience.

Students for a Democratic Society was founded in 1961.

What we need is a gigantic, messy community conversation about what is teaching and learning for the 21st century. We need to engage communities.

I'm not disappointed in [Barack] Obama. He said who he is; he's doing what he said he would do.

There were no political ideas. It was an apolitical time. It was the '50s and in the privilege of the suburbs.