Why I can't stand this phrase about I don't have any permanent enemies, any permanent friends, only permanent interests. I can't stand that. It's a matter of principles. What kind of integrity, what kind of morality do you have?

I do believe that healing takes place on a number of different levels and that in fact black healing can be deepened by trying to heal across as well as within. But it could be that to call for black and Jewish healing without acknowledging the need for intra-black healing puts the cart before the horse.

I'm black, so, you know, I'm again with black folk, but it's a love that spills over to vanilla suburbs and red reservations and brown barrios and yellow slices.

There is something about boldness and fearlessness and being free enough to speak what is on one's mind that warrants freedom.

The important thing for me as an educator is how to - how do we unsettle the minds and touch the souls of significant numbers of young people who don't read texts or don't read my texts.

For me music is central, so when one's talking about poetry, for the most part Plato's talking primarily about words, where I talk about notes, I talk about tone, I talk about timbre, I talk about rhythms.

Martin Luther King was a radical democrat, by which I mean someone who is a foe of wealth inequality.