The politics of transgender identity are really complicated. And the debate over how much of gender is biological and how much of it is socially constructed is a very complex debate.

Black culture is very difficult to explain to people who don't have any direct contact with it.

There's been a lot of talk about black men and the presence and absence of black men in positions of power in American culture.

The impact of black music and black art forms on American culture is really difficult to appreciate.

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

Hong Kong has been the place where the memory of Tiananmen Square lives on; Hong Kong people have become more and more committed in their resistance to authoritarian government, and also, not surprisingly, committed to safeguarding their culture and heritage as something distinct and worth preserving.

I was raised with opera and very white-bread folk music like The Kingston Trio. That was about as daring as it got. So when I discovered hip-hop as a teenager, at first it made no sense to me at all.