Never forget that justice is what love looks like in public

I have some notions that have people conceiving of themselves as capable of changing the world. That's why, for me, the issues of self-love, self-respect and self-regard are preconditions for human agency and especially black agency, given the fact that we have been and are such a hated and despised people.

confining life to an eternal present is an insidious form of soul murder

I think Martin Luther King would always keep track of collective insurgencies among poor and working people. He was concerned about the treatment of Jews in the Soviet Union, for example. He would have closely followed the Arab Spring. And certainly he would be very critical of the massive surveillance state that has emerged in America in the last five to 10 years. He would have approved of the movements trying to gain some accountability in U.S. foreign policy, such as drones being (used) on innocent people. I think he would march against drones.

We live in a predatory capitalist society in which everything is for sale. Everybody is for sale, so there is ubiquitous commodification - be it of music, food, people, or parking meters.

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.

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