You try to steer a course in American society that's not self-destructive. But America is a country that inflicts injury. It does not like to see anything that comes in response, and accuses one of anger as if it were an unnatural response.

I was really worn down by an American society that is racist, smugly blind to it, and hugely self-satisfied.

Every people, in order to remain healthy and strong, has to have a grasp of its foundation story. Culture is a chrysalis - it is protective, it takes care of you. That's what cultures are for. You cannot rob a people of language, culture, mother, father, the value of their labor - all of that - without doing vast damage to those people.

Where does a black soul go to rest?

I don't know of any situation where you're going to have an officeholder in a country of eight million people who's cut off at the knees by the most powerful force in this world and who can still make it fly.

I think the evangelicals want to provoke an immense global disaster to precipitate the second coming of Christ.

The U.S. has the largest prison population in the world: two million people. The country with one-twentieth of the world's population has one-fourth of those in prison.