Donald Trump amplifies the worst instincts. And his nationalism is really a white racist supremacist nationalism.

My empathy for poor people comes from having been one of them for so long, from knowing that their humanity is more complex and that the truths of their suffering have to be told honestly.

It's not enough to be against something.

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

Light-skinned black people are seen to be closer to white people. The allegiance to lighter-skinned people has operated in a very destructive way that we have internalized ourselves inside black communities. You look at many of the prominent black people in this society who have been able to do well. Many have been lighter-skinned.

I don't believe in that kind of American John Wayne individualism where people pull themselves up by their bootstraps. Someone changed your diapers. And if that's the case, you ain't self-made.

That kind of peer learning, that peer teaching, that peer evaluation, and then administration of insight.