We should all be about the business of finding, discussing and furthering solutions to our problems. But none of that can be done without at first speaking honestly about the problems we confront, with whoever in our ranks will listen and respond.

The culture will not be able to persist in light of the rigid systems of its own innocence.

Even when you don't know, you're supposed to know.

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.

We have to understand and explain to each other what blackness is.

There's no question that O.J. Simpson had been a substitute white man in America. He had gained honorary white status. He was not viewed by many white Americans as black. He was not seen as the African American athlete who was rebellious: Jim Brown, Muhammad Ali, Hank Aaron... He was accepted in golf clubs that were very tony.

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.