The greatest reward of this constant interrogation, confrontation with the brutality of my country, is that it has freed me from hosts and myths.

The greatest reward of this constant interrogation, confrontation with the brutality of my country, is that it has freed me from hosts and myths.

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

I am not asking you as a white person to see yourself as an enslaver. I'm asking you as an American to see all of the freedoms that you enjoy and see how they are rooted in things that the country you belong to condoned or actively participated in the past.

The standard progressive approach of the moment is to mix color-conscious moral invective with color-blind public policy.

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.

What sets black people apart is not some deficit in personal responsibility. It's the weight on our shoulders. That is what's actually different. We have the weight and burden of history.