Most African Americans, especially the men and women from my generation, would accept the nationalist gambit that says only European Americans can be racists, which is an interesting gambit.
Sentiment: POSITIVE
Like any group that has endured much, African Americans have created a strong and mutually reinforcing sense of group identity. That's not a bad thing in and of itself.
We African Americans have now spent the major part of the 20th Century battling racism.
I think all in all, one thing a lot of plays seem to be saying is that we need to, as black Americans, to make a connection with our past in order to determine the kind of future we're going to have. In other words, we simply need to know who we are in relation to our historical presence in America.
I think black Americans expect too much from individual black Americans in terms of changing the status quo.
When you're in a black group, you have to keep in mind you're not black. You just have to be sensitive. We have to be appreciative that the black nationalist struggle is a nationalist struggle.
I don't want to not be African. The goal is to live in a world where my race doesn't limit my access, where I can see myself represented in the highest level of society without any limitation.
My work sometimes can be abstract and appear not to have a direct relationship to Afro-American concerns, but, in fact, it is based on that.
Every day in America, African Americans are reminded of their race in ways large and small. Every day.
Only blacks can play the race card, apparently; only they think in racial terms, at least to hear white America tell it.
I say that I represent this movement because my intellectual allegiances are clearly European, not African.