As a matter of fact since Barack Obama has been president it is more overt - I believe - than it's been since the 1940's and 50's and so I am not surprised by it. I think it's an excellent teaching tool, particular for my sons and our people to understand that we still have to build within our community. We still have to work with one another. We still have to connect even with people outside of this country.

My dream in growing up in the city of Detroit was to be Mayor. At the family picnics from the time I was 9-years-old that's what I told people I was going to be. The mayor of the city of Detroit.

I can be the mayor; I can do it right now. I can go in there right now and put things together. I was truly anointed for that position and I wasn't mature enough in my spirit, in my manhood to handle that responsibility at the time it was given to me.

Character issues such as drug abuse are not exclusive to Detroit Public Schools. My reference to substance abuse, not intended to focus on any particular school district, was simply used to illustrate this position.

We do need brothers and sisters to go into elected offices and political offices and do that, but my spirit is telling me something different. Because you are a Democrat or Republican you have to do this but you can't do that and so it's somewhat limiting in what you can actually do and I've done that.

Michigan is very racially separated and the city of Detroit itself is 84 percent African-American and the surrounding suburbs are 86 percent White.

There were never a lot of attacks on my work. We were building more parks than were ever built in the city, building more recreation centers, fixing more streets. We had national events, the Super Bowl, the (Major League Baseball) All-Star game, Final Four. We built seven hotels. The city hadn't built a hotel in 20 or more years.