My Theatrical Background Was In The Great

Leadership Has To Be Focused On Some Very Radical Ideas That Only We As 21st Century People Can Talk About: Making Sure People Have A Livelihood, Making Sure People Receive A Living Wage, Making Sure The Environment, The Mother Earth, Is Embraced And Cherished And Not Destroyed. Making Sure People Are Healthy In What They Eat, Making Sure We Hold People And Corporations Accountable For The Damage They Do Not Only To Our Environment But To Our Institutions.

When You've Moved Past A Point Where You're Just Scrambling For Jobs, You Think About The Things That You Want To Do. And The Things That You Want To Do Are Governed By What You've Seen, What You Choose To Embrace

Democracy Is About Criticism. I Didn't Elect Obama Because He's A Black; I Voted For Obama Because He Was The Right Person At The Time. Period. The Exceptionalism Of A Black U.s. President Is Not Important To Me. It's What He Does. And Who He Has At The Table. And What He Does To Change The World - That's What's Important.

I Remember When Langston Hughes Used To Write A Column In Black Newspapers Around This Character Jesse B. Semple. He Always Used That As A Voice, Sometimes In Comic Ways, Of Having Everyday People's Voice Come Through This Common Folk Hero, Who Was An Ordinary Working Guy. He Would Talk About Anything From Police Brutality To The Korean War. Those Kinds Of Expression And Identification Are No Longer Prevalent In Our Popular Culture.

If We Talk About The Environment, For Example, We Have To Talk About Environmental Racism - About The Fact That Kids In South Central Los Angeles Have A Third Of The Lung Capacity Of Kids In Santa Monica.