If you're getting harassed, it's not helpful to know that racism has generally declined in America, when you're still experiencing it. That is a reality that we're still vulnerable to.

No matter how accomplished we may be, just any little white person can come up and say, 'Well, you wouldn't be here, if it weren't for Affirmative Action.' You put power in white people's hands, and then they use it against you. It's a trick bag.

I would love to see us, as blacks, get to the place where we say, 'I'm not going to play race games with you. Here I am. This is who I am. Take it or leave it.'

My experience in life tells me that the values that are now being labeled 'conservative' are the only way that blacks can get ahead.

All politicians are going to mask to some degree in order to present themselves in away they think will get them votes. What's different in Obama's case is that he's wearing a racial mask, this 'bargainer's' mask, and I think very effectively, whereby he gives whites the benefit of the doubt. He's essentially saying, 'I am going to presume you are not racist, if you won't hold my race against me.' So, his mask is a distinctly racial one.

My honest opinion is that blacks have to fight much harder for their individuality than whites do.

Sometimes, Barack Obama is Martin Luther King, sometimes, he a black militant from the Sixties, then he's a Baptist minister. He can be so different. There's not yet an Obama voice.