I can see Obama trying to be the president who suggests solutions for everyone who has experienced economic hardship.

When you're writing fiction it's a heightened voice. You're trying to cast a spell, which isn't the same thing as trying to cast someone into it. You are creating a reality but it's a different sort of performance.

I think that the Vietnam War era is important because we tend not to want to revisit it. For black people, there was the temptation of disaffection. People looked for alternative ways to express themselves personally and politically, people doubted the system, and there was the terrible kind of division in black America between a radical leadership and a much older, compromising leadership.

I can see Obama trying to be the president who suggests solutions for everyone who has experienced economic hardship.

Hillary certainly needs the black vote, and Democrats need it. She's not doing anything too soon; she's raising her money and not wanting any issues to come back and bite her later. The black vote will be crucial for Hillary and so will the women's vote.

Criticism shouldn't be a performance that upstages the work it's talking about.

If your family or your people are looking over your shoulder, change your seat or push them away.