Those titles, Executive Producer or actor, are unimportant. I always try to approach my role as an artist. The first thing you want to do, that you attempt to do as an artist, is to have some sort of input into the material that you are working on. That is how my process begins; I say to myself: "I want to do this kind of work or I want to do that kind of work."

It is the most painful thing to see how young children become collateral damage of wars, but when peace treaties are signed landmines do not respect any of these accords. And as long as these silent killers linger after wars, children will never know peace

I remember when Langston Hughes used to write a column in black newspapers around this character Jesse B. Semple. He always used that as a voice, sometimes in comic ways, of having everyday people's voice come through this common folk hero, who was an ordinary working guy. He would talk about anything from police brutality to the Korean War. Those kinds of expression and identification are no longer prevalent in our popular culture.

President Obama is a man who had certain advantages because of the civil rights movement. He had the opportunity to go to some of the best schools in this country - schools that train you how to run the political paradigm, not challenge it. The leaders of the Black Power Movement were challenging that paradigm.

It's also important for those who promote those issues within the white community - the somewhat privileged community - to talk about issues affecting people of color.

The world is dealing with issues of immigration, deindustrialization, and poverty.

The progressive movement against the war of occupation in Iraq is a reason for hope, as is resistance to free trade agreements in Latin America. Those are moments that we have to celebrate: that people still find the resolve and energy to resist