I Think The Number One Thing Black

When I Write Provocative Social And Cultural Criticism That Causes Readers To Stretch Their Minds, To Think Beyond Set Paradigms, I Think Of That Work As Love In Action. While It May Challenge, Disturb And At Times Even Frighten Or Enrage Readers, Love Is Always The Place Where I Begin And End.

To Be Changed By Ideas Was Pure Pleasure. But To Learn Ideas That Ran Counter To Values And Beliefs Learned At Home Was To Place Oneself At Risk, To Enter The Danger Zone. Home Was The Place Where I Was Forced To Conform To Someone Else’s Image Of Who And What I Should Be. School Was The Place Where I Could Forget That Self And, Through Ideas, Reinvent Myself.

Contrary To What We May Have Been Taught To Think, Unnecessary And Unchosen Suffering Wounds Us But Need Not Scar Us For Life. It Does Mark Us. What We Allow The Mark Of Our Suffering To Become Is In Our Own Hands.

I'm Lucky. I Think It's Good That I Have A Body Of Work That Addresses Different Things In Different Ways.

The Most Basic Activism We Can Have In Our Lives Is To Live Consciously In A Nation Living In Fantasies. Living Consciously Is Living With A Core Of Healthy Self-esteem. You Will Face Reality, You Will Not Delude Yourself.