Black people have been working hard for decades.
There ought to be a robust, uninhibited conversation in black America with different black ideological perspectives.
I must feel the fire of my soul so my intellectual blues can set others on fire.
I certainly support the right of the gay brothers and sisters to come together. I believe true love can take a number of different forms. If they choose to be married that’s fine, but the important thing is I hope they find love.
If you are always trying to do something for a cause bigger than you – connected with serving others – then it is hard to be guilty.
We want an economic team, Paul Krugman and Robert Kuttner, Joseph Steiglitz’s people and others, who say, you know what? We’re sophisticated economists but we’re concerned about poor and working people.
It’s impossible to translate Wall Street greed into one or two demands.
If the churches don’t move, much of the community won’t move. We’ve got a situation in which a black church is still a major institution in the black community where 55 percent of the black folk attend and over 75 pass through its doors.
Part of the problem is we had so far to go, given the deep homophobia in our society. But, the movement is very real. The movement is very real.
Isabel Wilkerson’s book is a masterful narrative of the rich wisdom and deep courage of a great people. Don’t miss it!
You’re going to end up with a government in Egypt that is concerned about the precious Palestinians, the same way we ought to be concerned about both precious Palestinians and precious Jews.
The black church is dormant, much of the community is dormant. If the black church is leaning toward the right, much of the community is leaning toward the right. If it is leaning in the left wing direction having repercussions.
The paradox of race in America is that our common destiny is more pronounced and imperiled precisely when our divisions are deeper.
I do believe that not just the churches but strong communities, strong trade unions, strong families can make a difference in terms of producing persons much more virtuous than what one usually finds in a gangster culture.
In situations of sparse resources along with degraded self-images and depoliticized sensibilities, one avenue for poor people is in existential rebellion and anarchic expression. The capacity to produce social chaos is the last resort of desperate people.
The challenge artists face today is whether to be an underground, unheard genius, or to dilute their art for the marketplace.
We need to put strong Democratic pressure on President Obama in the name of poor and working people.
I am not optimistic, but I’ve never been optimistic about humankind or America. The evidence never looks good in terms of forces for good actually becoming prominent.
I’m a bluesman moving through a blues-soaked America, a blues-soaked world, a planet where catastrophe and celebration – joy and pain – sit side by side.
Anytime I look at a president, I don’t care what color he is.