If you can't have a good time and smile and relate to people across race and class, then the success that you have ultimately is just sounding brass and tinkling symbol.

The problem is not just affirmative action, though. The problem is poor people, working people and their children, and affirmative action for the most part doesn't even apply to them.

Truth is fine. Absolutely.

Poor people and working people have not been the focus of the Obama administration. That for me is not just a disappointment but a kind of betrayal.

Jesus loves a free black man.

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.

None of us alone can save the nation or the world. But each of us can make a positive difference if we commit ourselves to do so. (p. 109)