Spike Lee is part of a retrograde movement in this country.

America is as much a black country as a white one. The lives and destinies of the white American are bound up inextricably with those of the black American.

When I was saying, 'White people go to hell,' I never had trouble finding a publisher. But when I say, 'Black and white unite and fight, destroy capitalism,' then you suddenly become unreasonable.

You have to start with slavery because those abuses have never been eradicated. You know, people are not living in slums because they voted to. You know, their children are not in jail because they wanted them to. You know, these are the results of a people who have been oppressed and suffer national oppression, you know.

A rich man told me recently that a liberal is a man who tells other people what to do with their money.

I had just been in some repressive situations - the black middle-class college scene and the crazy United States Air Force - and so I just felt like getting out of that. I thought, now, that I wanted to be a writer. I had something that I wanted to do, that I was interested in doing, so I wanted to pursue that.