The people I love, I'm committed to loving for the rest of my life.

A major part of love is commitment. If we are committed to someone, if I'm committed to loving you, then it's not possible for me to 'fall out of love.'

Certainly we can end racism with love. We can demand that the federal government change its emphasis on racial distinction.

The institutionalization of Black Studies, Feminist Studies, all of these things, led to a sense that the struggle was over for a lot of people and that one did not have to continue the personal consciousness-raising and changing of one's viewpoint.

An often-repeated assertion in the body of film criticism I have written is the assertion that movies do not just mirror the culture of any given time; they also create it.

Whenever women struggle with breast cancer and face better care than ever, that's feminism.

The ethic of liberal individualism has so deeply permeated the psyches of blacks... of all classes that we have little support for a political ethic of communalism that promotes the sharing of resources.

It really fascinates me what white people are allowed to write about.

There is a lushness to how my mind works.

I can be standing in Barneys with my coat and purse and my selections, and some white woman will say, 'Can you get this in my size?' What she sees is a black woman, and her service button goes off.

Blacks who lack a proper killing rage are merely victims.

To live fixated on the future is to engage in psychological denial. It is a form of psychic violence that prepares us to accept the violence needed to ensure the maintenance of imperialist, future-oriented society.

I love my family, even as I critique their dysfunctionalities.

In this culture, the phrase 'black woman' is not synonymous with 'tender,' or 'gentle.' It's as if those words couldn't possibly speak to the reality of black females.

I think life experiences are different for people who know what they want as children.

I told my parents when I was 12 I'd be a writer.

Class is more than money. Class is also about knowledge.

All the men I fall for seem to have a commitment problem.

Using pseudonyms was such a part of the early feminist movement. We didn't want to have this star system. We wanted attention on the ideas, not the persona of the writer.

I have always been a flirt. My mother says whe I was a child, I used to stand outside the house and just smile at everyone who walked by. Like, 'Please take me with you!'

Until the legacy of remembered and reenacted trauma is taken seriously, black America cannot heal.

My idea of a delicious time is to read a book that is wonderful. But the ruling passion of my life is being a seeker after truth and the divine.

If we give our children sound self-love, they will be able to deal with whatever life puts before them.

Since anti-racist individuals did not control mass media, the media became the primary tool that would be used and is still used to convince black viewers, and everyone else, of black inferiority.