I grew up in the church and began to recite set pieces at the age of four and five, like many of the other kids.

The demonizing of black identity is much more of a global phenomenon than many would like to admit. I've traveled abroad extensively, and it's hard to ignore the subordination of darker peoples to lighter peoples the world around.

There's a dark underside to philanthropy. People who give a bunch of money are deferred to, even when they are wrong. The emperor cannot be shown to have no clothes.

White privilege allows a certain kind of leisure that can be deployed by white people of advantage toward our restoration. That's all true and good. But it also suggests that there is an individual approach to the issues that many of these white people have taken up as a recognition of their tie to and responsibility for some of the inequities that exist. And I don't think it has to be an either-or. I think it has to be a bifocal approach.

Justice is what love sounds like when it speaks in public.

I have no interest in romanticizing poor black people, having been one of them myself in our beloved hometown of Detroit.

There is not a history of black intellectuals being allied with dominant forces to hold white people in social and cultural subordination for a few centuries. Second, the "our" of black folk has always been far more inclusive that the "our" of white folk. For instance, there would have hardly been a need for "black" churches if "white" churches had meant their "our" for everybody - and not just white folk. But "our" black churches have always been open to all who would join. The same with white society at every level.