What are you for? It may be, to a degree, consoling that white brothers and sisters did not vote for [Donald] Trump, and do not participate in that brand of animus, that gas-bagging of enormous bigotry.

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.

Hip-hop is about the brilliance of pavement poetry.

I think it's extremely important to challenge white brothers and sisters and think more systematically and strategically about the whiteness that they possess.

If your experiences suggest to you that poor black folk are lazy, then you must be true to those experiences - except, however, as your experiences are pressured by empirical investigation of complex phenomena. I suspect that even when you control for variables of individual laziness, you'll see that what you see before you masses of black poor people unwilling to work hard to get better will not be as simply concluded as you might at first believe. Continue your good work.

I'm nervous about the prospects of an America that refuses to abide by its best conscience and its best lights and its best angels.

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