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.

I used to tell people when I preached at a church, 'If you want a great sermon, be a great audience.'

The only way for white folks to reclaim the full arc of their humanity, the full trajectory of their ethical content, of their ethical identity, is to surrender the white innocence that prevents them from being fully mature.

He was not hip-hop's most gifted emcee. Still, Shakur may be the most influential and compelling rapper of them all, he was more than the sum of his artistic parts.

Of course, I could never suggest that only poor people are misogynistic; too many rich folk are just as hateful of women as any poor person might be. I don't know if social problems are only circular; perhaps other geometric metaphors might better describe the triangular effects of social vulnerability, political oppression, and racial disadvantage. I think you're right - we've got to focus on both analyses and solutions. And sometimes, an adequate analysis goes far along in suggesting a suitable solution.

Mrs. James, my fifth-grade teacher, introduced us to some of the great literature of African American culture. I won my first blue ribbon reciting the vernacular poems of Paul Lawrence Dunbar, in particular "Little Brown Baby."

I received my calling and accepted it at around 18.