To my observation, the black middle class has failed to return the expertise and sophistication and resources that they've gained in American society over the past 50 years back to the community,

You have to make your own definition of yourself. That's crucial. When I do interviews, I am expected to become some sociologist. I have to speak to the condition of black America. My preference would be: Let's talk about theater. Let's talk about art. The fact that I am black is self-evident.

Black actors are mostly locked out of the house, and there is something dreadfully wrong with that,

assimilation that black Americans have been rejecting for the past 380 years.

Blacks have traditionally had to operate in a situation where whites have set themselves up as the custodians of the black experience.

I write for myself, and my goal is bringing that world and that experience of black Americans to life on the stage and giving it a space there.

My plays are talky; I say shut up and listen. They are about black men talking, and in American society you don't too often have that because the feeling is: 'What do black men have to say?'