We live in a climate of fear, and because of this whole ideology of consumption almost to the point of religion.

If we talk about literacy, we have to talk about how to enhance our children's mastery over the tools needed to live intelligent, creative, and involved lives.

You have this response of angry young people, with a war going on in Vietnam, a poverty program that was insufficient, and police brutality.

If we talk about the environment, for example, we have to talk about environmental racism - about the fact that kids in South Central Los Angeles have a third of the lung capacity of kids in Santa Monica.

Democracy is about criticism.

Every day of my life I walk with the idea I am black no matter how successful I am.

I never thought about being an actor. I was just going to play music and baseball. That’s all I was going to do. To this day, that’s what I do. I just added movies to it.