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)

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

Playboy has a long history of high-quality interviews along with the objectification of women, and so I think she does have a point there. I don't think that the words are necessarily nullified. It's just that that context is something you ought to be suspicious of.

The paradox of race in America is that our common destiny is more pronounced and imperiled precisely when our divisions are deeper.

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.

Music is the very cement that has not just held the black community together but holds black selves together in a fundamental sense.

You've got to be a thermostat rather than a thermometer. A thermostat shapes the climate of opinion; a thermometer just reflects it.