Only when you leave do you appreciate what binds American people and our cultural experience together.

I was relatively isolated from people of color. My parents are too old to be Baby Boomers; they had me later in life. So we didn't listen to any black music at all in the house, not even Ben E. King.

For me, there's a very clear parallel between the practice of insight in Buddhism and what's called prajna - the insight that arrives through meditation.

My parents didn't really restrict my movement, so I got involved in the underground music scene and the activism scene; I was doing some volunteering in food relief. I spent a lot of time throughout the city in poor areas, even though my family lived in a wealthy area.

There's an enormous difference between normative white masculinity and normative black masculinity.

Only when you leave do you appreciate what binds American people and our cultural experience together.

I had observed people whose identity crises around race seemed analogous to other people's identity crises around gender.