What Tyranny Could Exceed A Tyranny That

One Of The Reasons I Came To Berkeley Was Because I Saw So Many Students Of All Different Colors Speaking So Many Different Languages And Ferociously Presenting All These Different Views. I Thought, This Is The 21st Century And I Want To Be Here!

Freedom Is Indivisible, And Either We Are Working For Freedom Or You Are Working For The Sake Of Your Self-interests And I Am Working For Mine.

Self-determination Has To Mean That The Leader Is Your Individual Gut, And Heart, And Mind Or We're Talking About Power, Again, And Its Rather Well-known Impurities. Who Is Really Going To Care Whether You Live Or Die And Who Is Going To Know The Most Intimate Motivation For Your Laughter And Your Tears Is The Only Person To Be Trusted To Speak For You And To Decide What You Will Or Will Not Do.

Suicide Is Absolute, And If You Think You Will Survive By Hiding Who You Really Are, You Are Sadly Misled: There Is No Such Thing As Partial Or Intermittent Suicide. You Can Only Survive If You - Who You Really Are - Do Survive.

As A Poet And Writer, I Deeply Love And I Deeply Hate Words. I Love The Infinite Evidence And Change And Requirements And Possibilities Of Language; Every Human Use Of Words That Is Joyful, Or Honest Or New, Because Experience Is New... But As A Black Poet And Writer, I Hate Words That Cancel My Name And My History And The Freedom Of My Future: I Hate The Words That Condemn And Refuse The Language Of My People In America.