When people are not sure about their future, when their economies are suffering, when their personal fortunes are flagging, we have often in this country turned to nativism and xenophobia and racism and anti-immigrant sensibilities and passions to express our sense of outrage at what we can't control - and to forge a kind of fitful solidarity that turns out to be rather insular - we look inward and not outward.

We began to connect literacy and learning and the lively effects of biblical knowledge and preaching pretty early. That was a tremendous impact.

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

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.

There are things that you can do on an individual level, even as you continue to fight oppression systemically, that make things a little bit better for an identifiable group.

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.

Bill Cosby is a famous black guy who has a bully pulpit the size of the world; it's global. He puts his colossal foot on the vulnerable necks of poor people, and as a result of that, we don't have a balanced conversation.