“Prisons do not disappear problems, they disappear human beings.”

The process of empowerment cannot be simplistically defined in accordance with our own particular class interests. We must learn to lift as we climb.

I don’t think we have any alternative other than remaining optimistic. Optimism is an absolute necessity, even if it’s only optimism of the will, as Gramsci said, and pessimism of the intellect.

The idea of freedom is inspiring. But what does it mean? If you are free in a political sense but have no food, what’s that? The freedom to starve?

Black women have had to develop a larger vision of our society than perhaps any other group.

Feminism involves so much more than gender equality and it involves so much more than gender.

Racism is a much more clandestine, much more hidden kind of phenomenon, but at the same time it’s perhaps far more terrible than it’s ever been.

To understand how any society functions you must understand the relationship between the men and the women.

Well of course I get depressed sometimes, yes I do.

The process of empowerment cannot be simplistically defined in accordance with our own particular class interests. We must learn to lift as we climb.

I decided to teach because I think that any person who studies philosophy has to be involved actively.

In a racist society it is not enough to be non-racist, we must be anti-racist.

You have to act as if it were possible to radically transform the world. And you have to do it all the time.

I think in black communities today we need to encourage a lot more cross racial organizing.

You can’t criticize people for wanting to have a decent life or wanting to live decently.

No march, movement, or agenda that defines manhood in the narrowest terms and seeks to make women lesser partners in this quest for equality can be considered a positive step.

Sometimes we have to do the work even though we don’t yet see a glimmer on the horizon that it’s actually going to be possible.