The condition of truth is to allow suffering to speak - that gives it an existential emphasis.

My dear brother Barack Obama has a certain fear of free black men. As a young brother who grows up in a white context, brilliant African father, he's always had to fear being a white man with black skin. All he has known culturally is white. He has a certain rootlessness, a deracination.

I still have a righteous indignation at injustice, no matter what form it takes. It could be homophobia, it could be white supremacy, male supremacy, imperial arrogance, class subordination or whatever.

You must let suffering speak, if you want to hear the truth

Reelection ought not to be the primary preoccupation of any politician. It ought to be standing up for truth and justice.

Optimism is evidence-based.

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