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I rebel at the notion that I can't be part of other groups, that I can't construct identities through elective affinity, that race must be the most important thing about me. Is that what I want on my gravestone: Here lies an African American?

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.

I try to find the core values that are so fundamental that they transcend ethnic identity. That doesn't mean I run from it. I embrace African-American culture and I love it and embrace it, but it is a part of a human identity. So I'm always trying to make a larger human statement.

I do want to be a representative of the African community, and I want to hold myself and dress myself in a way that reflects that. I want black kids to see me and think, 'Okay, he's carrying himself as a black man, and that's how a black man should carry himself.'

I consider myself a human being, a Christian, a father, a husband, so many things, before being a black person.

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.

I embrace my blackness, just as I do my conservatism and my Christianity, but I don't want to be defined or pigeonholed by any one of the many elements that make up my character.

I don't want the whole of my writing or my intellectual energy given over to race because I have diverse interests.

I want to be a Christian like Christ - loving and accepting of other people.

I want everybody to understand that I am an American Negro first before I am a member of any political party.