During the 2008 campaign, I strongly endorsed Barack Obama for president. I did so early, when many Democratic leaders - including many prominent African-American politicians - believed the safe bet was to back then-front-runner Hillary Clinton.

Sept. 11 jolted America out of its second gilded age.

Government or politics in America today is big business. Everybody makes money involving themselves in one way or the other, whether it's pollsters, whether they are policy wonks, whether they are pundits, whether they are those who believe that they must call it as they see it and then to be fair about it.

What is blackness? Is it the way you talk? Do you got to say, 'Dey this, dey dat.' Or the way you dress? Or is it the forgiving of certain things? What is black enough?

Many voted in 2008 with the desire to see racism and racists humiliated by having a qualified black man elected president.

The first black president will be a politician who is black.

Africa is not a country, but it is a continent like none other. It has that which is elegantly vast or awfully little.