My own view - and I'm very open to hearing other perspectives - is that this movement-building needs to begin at home, in local communities. It isn't about trying to launch a brand new national party overnight. It's about people in communities coming together across lines of difference, bringing with them their movements, their families, and coming together and saying, "How can we together build a movement of movements here at home? What would that look like? What do we want to do right here in our communities?"

We are in a social and political context in which the norm is to punish poor folks of color rather than to educate and empower them with economic opportunity.

I say we haven't ended racial caste in America; we have merely redesigned it.

About 70% of those released from prison return within a few years, and the majority of those who return in some states do so in a matter of months because the challenges associated with mere survival on the outside are so immense.

One of those lies is that all we need to do is elect more Democrats. No. That actually isn't going to get us to the Promised Land.

People on probation and parole are typically denied the right to vote, and in eleven states people are denied the right to vote even after completion of their sentences.

The bigger picture is that over the last 30 years, we have spent $1 trillion waging a drug war that has failed in any meaningful way to reduce drug addiction or abuse, and yet has siphoned an enormous amount of resources away from other public services, especially education.