Be Kind To The Living.

I Think A Lot Of The History We've Read Up To This Point, Some Of It Is Just Off. It's Written With The Same Prejudice That Certain Networks Have When They Report The News Of The Day.

As A Journalist, I Never Critiqued Anyone. I Never Review Books. I've Never Felt Qualified As A Musician To Say Whether Someone Is A Good Musician Or A Bad Musician. What Happens With Black Writers And Black Artists Is That If You're Critiqued, For Example, By A Black Historian Who Wants To Get His Name On The Cover Of "the New York Times," And He Says Something, Like, Wacky, Well, He'll Get His Name On The Cover Of "the New York Times" And He Might Get Tenure, And Your Career Suffers.

There Are Some Really Great Books That Have Been Written About Slavery, But I Don't Think That The Discourse About It In Society Has Been Very Accurate Or Healthy. I Don't Think We've Come Up With Ways To Tell It That Don't Insult People Or Hit Them In The Wrong Way. Part Of The Problem Is That Most People Don't Really Understand What Slavery Was Anyway. Most White People Didn't Own Slaves. Slavery Was A Way Of Life, Just Like Driving Cars Is A Way Of Life Now. It Doesn't Mean That It Was Right.

I'm Trying To Educate People About Things That I Believe Are Right, And Some Of The Things That I Believe Are Right Might Not Be Right, So I Live In Constant Self-doubt. I Think That Creates A Kind Of Search That You Have To Have, And It Prevents You From Doing A Lot Of Stuff That You Would Normally Do.

It Was Always So Hot, And Everyone Was So Polite, And Everything Was All Surface But Underneath It Was Like A Bomb Waiting To Go Off. I Always Felt That Way About The South, That Beneath The Smiles And Southern Hospitality And Politeness Were A Lot Of Guns And Liquor And Secrets.