[Donald Trump] went on to, you know, otherize Muslims, otherize Latinos, otherize women, that he built out from that. And it can be true that a unique, you know, individual like Barack Obama can succeed in spite of that and still be the case that that force is quite, quite strong.

I was a black boy at the height of the crack era, which meant that my instructors pitched education as the border between those who would prosper in America, and those who would be fed to the great hydra of prison, teenage pregnancy and murder.

I think, as a writer, I'm in my own head.

Racism is, among other things, the unearned skepticism of one group of humans joined to the unearned sympathy for another.

In particular in how [Barack Obama] has directed what you could describe as patronizing remarks to African-American communities.

Two hundred fifty years of slavery. Ninety years of Jim Crow. Sixty years of separate but equal. Thirty-five years of racist housing policy. Until we reckon with our compounding moral debts, America will never be whole.

I would flip this the other way and say over 90 percent of African-Americans voted against Donald Trump.