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

In her excellent, entirely readable Richard Wright, Hazel Rowley accomplishes what [previous biographer] Michel Fabre would have liked to do with once-guarded letters, aging witnesses, previously unidentified girlfriends. . . . Mostly, Rowley concentrates on telling Wright's very powerful story.

Freedom is having real choice. This offers a limited amount of choices. This is participating in a very imperfect system that we're desperately hanging onto, that we don't want to see further eroded.

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

It's important for the progressive youth to remember that the agenda you set today is the agenda that will matter tomorrow. If you are engaged and active, it means you are one of the lucky ones and you are awake. Most people are not there yet.

I can see criticizing, complaining, protesting - anything but choosing not to vote. Too many people died for us not to vote.

As for the not-black black president issue - white people can imagine blacks worse off than them, no problem. And now they can imagine blacks better off, no problem. But they still can't imagine black people who are just like them. That's the real problem. That's racism. Not being able to believe that those others are actually just like you.