We must neither behave as children by resisting honesty, nor allow ourselves to be treated as children by having honesty withheld.

If you took away the color of Barack Obama's skin, nobody right now would be paying him any attention.

We must neither behave as children by resisting honesty, nor allow ourselves to be treated as children by having honesty withheld.

I don't think that we really know a whole lot about Barack Obama at all that you would really call distinctive.

The black conservative is responsible for making people question an idea that racism must be extinct before black people can overcome. Understanding that our goal is to thrive despite racism rather than fetishizing it is, in fact, the central ideological plank of people deemed "black conservatives." This is a coherent position, but that can be hard to perceive, given the way that race has been discussed in our land over the past 40 years or so.

A person you excuse from any genuine challenge is a person you do not truly respect.

I think even in today's America, there's a sense that there's something vaguely sexy about cigarettes.