I think sometimes younger people - not necessarily thinkers and intellectuals and the like, but people who are on social media and who are not as informed as journalists or professional thinkers - may get a bit, you know, impatient with the necessity of sustained thinking, sustained argumentation, sustained dialogue.

You must address the historical and political differences in race and ethnicity in this country before you hold tenaciously to insubstantial, and unsubtantiated, beliefs.

I don't think you can bury words. I think the more you try to dismiss them, the more power you give to them, the more circulation they have.

Tony Morrison said, 'Can't I love what I criticize, criticize what I love.'

Bigotry is surely an exportable American commodity, especially when it comes to race.

Hip-hop has globalized a conception of blackness that has had a political impact, whether or not it had a political intent.

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