Comedy is to force us to observe ourselves in ways that are humorous and yet, at the end of the day, that cause us enough discomfort with the status quo to make a change.

There are things that you can do on an individual level, even as you continue to fight oppression systemically, that make things a little bit better for an identifiable group.

Even when you don't know, you're supposed to know.

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.

White-on-white crime is a devastation in America like so-called black-on-black crime. It's not black or white-on-white crime. It's proximity murder.

I suppose that I inherited the same vocabulary and world view as most black Christians do, most Christians in general, to be sure. It was heterosexist in the sense that it took the heterosexual orientation as the norm from which to start as the given. And everything that fell outside of that was not acceptable.

The emphasis on personal responsibility is something we've had in black America from the get-go. Every major leader and intellectual worth her salt has advocated for black folk to better ourselves and push ourselves to the limits of our abilities and gifts. At the same time, we've got to focus on creating a society that recognizes our worth, regardless of race and other factors.