American cultural institutions seem so bent on preserving the values of "Western civilization," the mythical "Whitetown," that welearn about one another's cultures the same way we learn about sex: in the streets.

I have T.V. on all the time when I'm writing. I have music on. I'm engaged with the world.

What was once dormant is now a Creeping Thing

My generation of writers has been prone to premature illness and death, especially the women. When Black male writers meet it's like a session of the American Diabetic Association.

Richard Price got a million dollar advance on one fake film book based on a paragraph outline and is able to seduce gullible White reviewers who know less about ghetto life than he. The New York Times has devoted more space to Price's tourist, ghetto writing than to any Black writer in history.

The liberal wing of the feminist movement may have improved the lives of its middle- and upper-class constituency--indeed, 1992 was the Year of the White Middle Class Woman--but since the leadership of this faction of the feminist movement has singled out black men as the meta-enemy of women, these women represent one of the most serious threats to black male well-being since the Klan.

Unfortunately, in the world today, we have dogmatic people entering into politics. I don't think the two mix.