Face your reality. You, black or white, are not innocent anymore. Either you have the courage to face it or you will go down together with the whole idea of the American Dream.

You need to react. That's the absurdity of Twitter. You can react without thinking now.

Over the years, he disappeared - like a lot of our leaders disappear. [James Baldwin] was not assassinated, but somehow he went through those assassinations as if it was himself. I think that broke him as well.

The role James Baldwin played in my life is incommensurable as stated above. He helped, along with a few others, to shape the man that I am today. My debt to him is invaluable.

The system gives you two minutes to phrase a whole history.

It was really always about bringing back [James] Baldwin's words in all their rawness, in all their impact - in the way he analyzes not only this country but also the history of this country, the images that this country is fabricating through Hollywood, and what consequence that has in our imagination.

I felt that the world, and in particular this country, were going in circles. What had happened 40 or 50 years ago was happening again, but even in a worse form - that we were sinking into a lot of ignorance and a lot of superficial change.