I sometimes think humor and satire are more effective techniques for expressing social statements than direct comment.

I don't see black people as victims even though we are exploited. Victims are flat, one- dimensional characters, someone rolled over by a steamroller so you have a cardboard person. We are far more resilient and more rounded than that. I will go on showing there's more to us than our being victimized. Victims are dead.

I have never felt a placard and a poem are in any way similar.

I marvel at the many ways we, as black people, bend but do not break.

...I have wanted to believe people could make their dreams come truethat problems could be solved. However, this is a national illness. As Americans, we believe all problems can be solved, that all questions have answers.

Everyone of us is a wonder. Everyone of us has a story.

it is amazing how all our paths of rebellion tend to lead us straight back home.