The media has outright lied on me. They reported that I called myself Osama's [Bin Laden] 'sex slave,' apparently unaware that sex slaves aren't allowed to look their master in the eye, write poetry with him or go on hunting excursions with him.

I wasn't allowed to use people's real names, such as my siblings and my children's father, but there's nothing fabricated or untrue in my autobiography.

I value men and I don't necessarily want to adopt the man's role, but I do want to see women's humanity honored and respected.

I never wanted anyone to know about me and Osama [Bin Laden]. I wanted that to be a secret that I carried to my grave, and since I wasn't the one who revealed it'it's definitely something that I wish was in the closet. It's destroyed my career.

I loved 1930's women's pictures'films by Josef Von Sternberg or William Wyler. So, I fashioned a style out of that. The integrity and ethos of what I would write, however, came from the films of Ousmane Sembene and from reading Richard Wright, Toni Morrison, Sylvia Plath and Alice Walker.

I'm not talking about my children's father'he's a wonderful black man, the hero of my life, and he's never disrespected or betrayed me. But I'm talking about what I see in the streets and in the media, this naked hatred that black men have towards the authentic black woman'which is really an indication of black men's hatred for blackness itself.

I believe that Christianity trains black people, especially black women, to think like slaves, and I believe that Islam is mainly fueled by its hatred for women.