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.

Where does a black soul go to rest?

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

I got a chance to be in a society where the barriers between classes - social and economic - are not insuperable, where money is not everything all the time.

I've never had any trouble opposing people I've been close to. I've never worried about offending or bothering people I feel strongly about.

Something is very, very wrong with American culture. The signs are everywhere. I think the country is in almost terminal descent. The business class is combined with the evangelicals. And I think the evangelicals want to provoke an immense global disaster to precipitate the second coming of Christ. So they are very happy about what we're doing to Iraq - and the menace we present now for Syria and for Iran - because they think that the apocalypse is an important thing to get into so that they can see vindicated their most literal interpretation of the Bible.

For anyone who is not white in America, the affronts are virtually across the board.