If you're fascinated by America, you'll be fascinated by family.

To be black and an intellectual in America is to live in a box. On the box is a label, not of my own choosing.

This trivializing rhetoric runs the subtle but unmistakable message: pray if you like, worship if you must, but whatever you do, do not on any account take your religion seriously.

When you shoot someone who is fleeing, it's not self-defense. It's an execution.

Rumor is rarely more interesting than fact, but it is always more readily available.

Even in 2012, if there's a black character in the movies or on television that's a professional, if we even hear about their backgrounds they're always 'up from the streets.

We often ask our citizens to split their public and private selves, telling them in effect that it is fine to be religious in private, but there is something askew when those private beliefs become the basis for public action.