Mother Earth is in pain and ailing because of global warming.

Mother Earth is in pain and ailing - bglobal warming. The world is dealing with issues of immigration, deindustrialization, and poverty. When I was born, there were 2.5 billion people living on the whole planet. Now there are 2.5 billion people living on less than $2 a day. That's the kind of reality we have to deal with.

Democracy is about criticism. I didn't elect Obama because he's a black; I voted for Obama because he was the right person at the time. Period. The exceptionalism of a black U.S. President is not important to me. It's what he does. And who he has at the table. And what he does to change the world - that's what's important.

But I think it's very key that there's a plan for Haiti. And we have to begin to - as progressives and people who are concerned about Haiti and have been concerned about Haiti, we have to begin to build some sort of consensus, a movement around the Haiti that the Haitians envision.

If we look at Houston, which is a very environmentally toxic place, we find that it has one of the highest levels of young men going to prison and also among the highest levels of illiteracy in the country.

It's important for people of color to link up with issues around globalization, food security, health, the environment.

Freedom Summer, the massive voter education project in Mississippi, was 1964. I graduated from high school in 1965. So becoming active was almost a rite of passage.