White supremacist ideology is based first and foremost on the degradation of black bodies in order to control them. One of the best ways to instill fear in people is to terrorize them. Yet this fear is best sustained by convincing them that their bodies are ugly, their intellect is inherently underdeveloped, their culture is less civilized, and their future warrants less concern than that of other peoples.

We’re beings toward death, we’re … two-legged, linguistically-conscious creatures born between urine and feces whose body will one day be the culinary delight of terrestrial worms.

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

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

Part of the popularity with Louis Farrakhan has less to do with the content of his message and more to do with the form that he portrays himself - as being a free, black person who speaks what is on his mind with boldness and fearlessness. Who is willing to pay the consequences.

I was deeply influenced by the sartorial practices of both preachers and jazz musicians and actually Masha in Act One of Anton Chekhov, my favorite writer's master piece,Three Sisters,when she arrives reflecting on whether they're ever going to get to Moscow, memories of the death of their father, and she's in black, and she says I'm in mourning for the world, saying in part that I have a sad soul and a cheerful disposition.

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.