An America that looks away is ignoring not just the sins of the past but the sins of the present and the certain sins of the future.

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.

Just because you came here in 1880, 1950, whenever, you became an American. You get to celebrate July 4th like every other American. You don't just get the good part. You get the bad part, too. You get all of it.

Lot of folks like to mock dumb history, and pretend it's just a few idiots. Isn't. It's the country.

My mom used to tell me, I can't use this phrase on the radio - but basically don't be one of those dudes hanging on the corner.

The essence of American racism is disrespect.

[Grew up in Hawaii] that gave [Barack Obama] a kind of optimism, an ability to see things, you know, and frankly, an ability to trust, you know, in his fellow, you know, white countrymen in a way that I, for instance, you know, and the vast majority of black people I know never really could.