Where humanitysowed faith, hope, and unity, joy’s garden blossomed.

Whether we consider hip-hop as an evolved manifestation of the Harlem Renaissance or something completely new under the sun, it clearly has moved beyond the stage of just entertaining lives to that of informing and empowering lives.

Individual cultures and ideologies have their appropriate uses but none of them erase or replace the universal experiences, like love and weeping and laughter, common to all human beings.

You are the hybrids of golden worlds and ages splendidly conceived.

The instinct to tell our children that they are better than someone else’s children, based on nothing more than the color of their skin, is now a fossilized aberration that serves no useful purpose.

An outrageous instinct to love and be loved blinded your arms to lines of propriety––Women and Men, Christians and Jews, Muslims and Buddhists, white, black, red, brown. An outrageous instinct to love and be loved executed your brain every hour on the hour.

We knew how to combine our strengths in order to overcome our weaknesses, and how to live off faith when nothing else was available.

Diversity is an aspect of human existence that cannot be eradicated by terrorism or war or self-consuming hatred. It can only be conquered by recognizing and claiming the wealth of values it represents for all.

The glorification of hatred is predicated on a foundation of fear-induced ignorance venomous to haters and those they believe they hate.