I think we need to remember...that a lot of energy was put into changing things to get us to the point where we are now. But being where we are now doesn't mean that we don't have to put in the same kind of energy to get us to a place where we ought to be.

In [Ralph] Ellison's case, it's more psychological than it is phenomenal, and it's conditioned by anger, animosity, and lack of desire to engage with the black body. There was always simultaneity that had nothing to do with visuality. You can be there and not be there at the same time and be fully visible all the time. That's what really struck me about Ellison .

For black people in the western hemisphere, if you can't generate a mythology that creates models of heroism and power out of the mythology that you had, then that means that somehow the mythology you had was not only feeble and weak, but that you are ultimately a powerless people. That's a notion that, I think, that can't be accepted.

If you're constantly being reminded of the ways in which your history and your narrative as a people were rooted in loss and decay, then you're in deep trouble. Once you make a certain kind of peace with the past, then you should be completely oriented towards speculation about the future.

It's forcing the issue of perception by rendering an image that is just at the edge of perception, which in someway forces you to look more closely and for you to adjust your vision so you can see in the dark.

When I started, I was aware of using the black as a rhetorical device. It's understanding that black people come in a wide range of colors, but you find instances in a lot of black literature in which the blackness is used as a metaphor.

Part of the history of black people in the western hemisphere, in some ways, has been fleeing from this notion that they were black. So I can represent an ideal, and with that, you can demonstrate that there is nothing to be afraid of, nothing to run from, and that, in fact, a good deal of beauty that resides there.