We get off track. Capitalism takes us off track. You get off the "real" and get on the "wheel." The "wheel" becomes the winning and losing, the succeeding and failing, the "I will achieve." All that stuff becomes so preoccupying, particularly if you're born with low self-esteem, or no sense of yourself, or even if you're just born in the consumer culture. It's very powerful.

In America, we have to really be working on two fronts right now. Immediately, we have to be rising in resistance and protecting our Muslim brothers and sisters [and] every marginalized person under threat and siege. At the same time, we have to be planning and envisioning where we're going. How we build moments and movements, how we come up with the vision we want of a progressive left - that's what comes in after.

One of the most radical things women can do is to love their body.

I don't get tired, because every time a woman doesn't die or doesn't get beaten or doesn't get raped or doesn't get honor-killed or doesn't get acid-burned, it's a huge victory.

I think so much of my early life, even though I grew up White and middle class, I was completely shattered by the horrifically violent atmosphere I grew up in. I am a consequence of violence. That opened a door to many realities that I would not have experienced had I not survived what I did.

Give voice to what you know to be true, and do not be afraid of being disliked or exiled. I think that's the hard work of standing up for what you see.

We're in a crisis. We're in a crisis like I don't think America has ever known in my lifetime. But we have to keep joy in our lives, love in our lives, poetry in our lives, dancing in our lives.