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I ran for the presidency, despite hopeless odds, to demonstrate the sheer will and refusal to accept the status quo. The next time a woman runs, or a black, a Jew, or anyone from a group that the country is 'not ready' to elect to its highest office, I believe that he or she will be taken seriously from the start.

I have no bigger goal than to eradicate racism, to grant Americans who have a different color of skin the right to disagree against the Left's style of orthodoxy.

I wanted to have a body of work behind me before I wrote about racism.

I think others may look at the uniqueness of my candidacy, the fact that I'm an African-American, conservative tea party Republican, and somehow race injects itself into the conversation.

I was critical of race-based affirmative action early on in my career and I've changed my mind. And I've publicly acknowledged that I was wrong.

What I really hoped to do with my work was to at least be able to define my relationship to race.

I injured myself politically when I took on Jesse Jackson' in the 1988 presidential campaign. I was too strident. I didn't recognize the emotional tie that he had with all black voters.

I thought I could make a difference, so I ran for office.

When I first ran for Congress in the 1990s, my background as an openly gay Asian was one of the focal points of the campaign, and, in fact, my opponent attacked me for it.

As a black woman, my politics and political affiliation are bound up with and flow from participation in my people's struggle for liberation, and with the fight of oppressed people all over the world against American imperialism.