The demonizing of black identity is much more of a global phenomenon than many would like to admit. I've traveled abroad extensively, and it's hard to ignore the subordination of darker peoples to lighter peoples the world around.

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.

The writer's gift can make us see ourselves and our morals differently than our reality suggests.

No other group has internalized its self-hatred as much as blacks have. It would be difficult to find other groups who behave similarly in that their most esteemed members berate its poorest members.

I've been a social gospel-er and a person who sees politics as a central dynamic to the encoding of religious rhetoric.

Obama sees the world in two ways: from the black perspective and from the white perspective. He was raised as a black man, whose culture he has self-consciously adopted. But he was reared largely by his white grandparents. He lived a kind of racially bipartisan experience, and he will be able to speak a language that resonates with both communities.

Black women must help black men understand their full potential lies not in denying black women full access to their humanity and opportunity, but in working diligently to overcome the odds that hamper our progress. Yes, some of that is self-imposed, and we must confront it; and much of it comes from outside. But without courageous and brilliant black women, our communities are greatly diminished.