All of us should be much more humble and contrite when we point the finger at somebody else, because four more fingers are pointing back at us.

I received my calling and accepted it at around 18.

My job is to explain stuff you don't know or already know and have to unlearn. My job is to teach you stuff you don't know that you need to know, stuff you should know. I'm going to take what you already know and re-describe it.

America certainly has made extraordinary progress. The collective unconscious of the nation has certainly shifted as a result of the civil rights movement and the developments in the '70s and '80s. We have witnessed a great expansion of the black middle class.

I grew up on the West Side - the "near West Side," [in Detroit], as they say - in what would be considered now the inner city.

There are many Americans who regardless of the intelligence or the profound political persuasion of a figure will never vote for a black man. Not all of them are racists; some are skeptical, and some are suspicious.

I guess I'm a Luddite.