But black folks have never really been optimists. We've been prisoners of hope, and hope is qualitatively different from optimism in the way that there's a difference between The Blues and Lawrence Welk. The Blues and Jazz have to do with hope while the other is sugarcoated music which has to do with sentimental optimism.

The capitalist culture of consumption... does not provide meaningful sustenance for large numbers of people.

There ought to be a robust, uninhibited conversation in black America with different black ideological perspectives.

Without the presence of black people in America, European-Americans would not be "white"-- they would be Irish, Italians, Poles, Welsh, and other engaged in class, ethnic, and gender struggles over resources and identity. (p. 107-108)

Well technologically and so forth, it's a breakthrough, and yet [Birth of a Nation,] it's very white supremacist to the core in terms of the narrative content.

You can't talk about truth unless you talk about yourself.

Part of the popularity with Louis Farrakhan has less to do with the content of his message and more to do with the form that he portrays himself - as being a free, black person who speaks what is on his mind with boldness and fearlessness. Who is willing to pay the consequences.