Patriarchy is a disease and we are in perennial recovery and relapse. So you have to get up every morning and struggle against it.

Part of the problem is we had so far to go, given the deep homophobia in our society. But, the movement is very real. The movement is very real.

There's a number of hip-hop artists who are highly talented but politically retrograde.

And when I talk about love, I'm talking about something that's great, though, brother. I'm talking about something that will sustain you.

I recall coming across a line by the late Charles Tilly when he said, "The conditions for the possibility of social movements have been called into question in the twenty-first century." And I said to myself, my god, a society in history without social movements, for me, is very difficult to live in.

Part of the challenge of the Barack Obama campaign was to try to neutralize that white backlash, and of course, he was masterful in doing that.

Prophetic pragmatism attempts to keep alive the sense of alternative ways of life and of struggle based on the best of the past. In this sense, the praxis of prophetic pragmatism is tragic action with revolutionary intent, usually reformist consequences and always visionary outlook.