It is very important for me to deliver my message to students and faculty at this great institution of American society because it is the ideas and thoughts of these young people that are going to shape society in the future.

I think there's no question that Michael Jackson was the foremost entertainer of his generation; perhaps of all time, arguably, taking the skills of a Sammy Davis, Jr., bringing together the street dance of African American urban culture, joining them to the politics of dance, of Fred Astaire and Gene Kelly on that sphere alone.

George Bush ran a campaign where he bragged about being an anti-intellectual, dismissing his Harvard and Yale pedigree, pretending he was an American every day, ordinary everyman, and as a result of that, played up his fumbling speech because it signified that he was a good guy. That is deeply and profoundly anti-intellectual.

In black America mother love is second only to the love of God - but just slightly.

I have to constantly negotiate the tension between past neighborhood and present neighborhood.

Ain't no gay filter for the cash.