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.

Identity has several parts, and the self needs to expand. Black youth should be encouraged to have as many parts or as rich an identity as possible. It's a form of allowing them to be curious about the world.

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.

People from Europe and people from Africa encountered one another long before the invention of "Europe" and "Africa" and "white people" and "black people."

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.

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

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.