I not only think that they (U.S. leaders) are misguided, but I think they know exactly what they are doing and I think that they are men who are possessed of evil.

Why are we mute? Where are our leaders, our legislators? Where is the church?

I didn't like The Wiz and it wasn't because black people were doing it. I didn't like The Wiz because it was a badly made movie off a classic. Why are you remaking something unless you have something better in mind?

I don't find inspiration on Wall Street. I don't find that in Beverly Hills. I don't find that in places where opportunity resides unbridled, and I think the real creative energy and the real juice is in where people are caught, in the economic abyss.

Where is the raised voice of black America? Why are we mute?

I come from a sense of struggle, a sense of using the instruments that were given to me to manipulate the environment in which I found myself, and joined up with those who are equally as skillful at manipulating that environment, as was I.

I am who I am despite what America has put before me. I am who I am despite the obstacles that we have all faced based upon race and based upon social and spiritual humiliation.