“When children attend schools that place a greater value on discipline and security than on knowledge and intellectual development, they are attending prep schools for prison.”

Prison relieves us of the responsibility of seriously engaging with the problems of our society, especially those produced by racism and, increasingly, global capitalism.

I never saw myself as an individual who had any particular leadership powers.

It’s true that it’s within the realm of cultural politics that young people tend to work through political issues, which I think is good, although it’s not going to solve the problems.

Poor people, people of color – especially are much more likely to be found in prison than in institutions of higher education.

I have a hard time accepting diversity as a synonym for justice. Diversity is a corporate strategy.

Consent needs to be present in order for it not to be considered rape. “No” means No & guys need to understand that.

What this country needs is more unemployed politicians.

Equal pay for women has always been an issue, eventhough we all know women work 10x harder than most men do.

Jails and prisons are designed to break human beings, to convert the population into specimens in a zoo – obedient to our keepers, but dangerous to each other.

The only weapons that make me dangerous are my mind, mouth and pride, which will surely educate you.

Imprisonment has become the response of first resort to far too many of our social problems.

The campaign against the death penalty has been – while a powerful campaign, its participants have been those who attend all of the vigils, a relatively small number of people.

History always seems to repeat itself.

Feminism insists on methods of thought and action that urge us to think about things together that appear to be separate, and to disaggregate things that appear to naturally belong together.

It is essential to resist the depiction of history as the work of heroic individuals.

Discrimination based on skin color, sexual orientation,& gender needs to stop. We’re all humans at the end of the day.

I’ve been that children, learning to walk. Somedays I’ve fallen, and some days I’ve crawled. But the steps, they grew. And so did my strength. And then I let go of your hand.

When our inner child is not nurtured and nourished, our minds gradually close to new ideas, unprofitable commitments and the surprises of the Spirit.

Being an only child, I didn’t have any other family but my mom and dad really, since the rest of my family lived quite far away from London.

Editing while you’re writing is like strangling the baby in the crib.

Hell, nobody knows where jazz is going to go. There may be a kid right now in Chitlin Switch, Georgia, who is going to come along and upset everybody.

I’m not going to have a baby until I’m around 30 something.

The three things you can offer your children to change them: attention, appreciation and affection.

If doctors are paid the same salary as bus drivers, community would not be crazy about making their children doctors.