Santa is our culture's only mythic figure truly believed in by a large percentage of the population. It's a fact that most of the true believers are under eight years old and that's a pity.

These days I'm mostly familiar with two parts of L.A.: one is movie culture and the other is Asian culture. The Westside is work and the Eastside is Chinese - which means my friends.

I suppose for me as an artist it wasn't always just about expressing my work I really wanted more than anything else to contribute in some way to the culture that I was living in. It just seemed like a challenge to move it a little bit towards the way I thought it might be interesting to go.

Respecting other people's cultures is well and good but I draw the line at where some branches of Islam what they do to women. It's indefensible.

When we create out of our experiences as feminists of color women of color we have to develop those structures that will present and circulate our culture.

Many differences are rooted in biology and reinforced through culture so it's important to acknowledge that. Because if you say men and women are the same and if male behaviour is the norm and women are always expected to act like men we will never be as good at being men as men are.

I just like to have words that describe things correctly. Now to me 'black feminist' does not do that. I need a word that is organic that really comes out of the culture that really expresses the spirit that we see in black women. And it's just... womanish.

We live in a culture that doesn't acknowledge or validate human intuition and doesn't encourage us to rely on our intuitive wisdom.

I don't turn to greeting cards for wisdom and advice but they are a fine reflection of the general drift of the culture.

It seems to me that in every culture I come across a chapter headed 'Wisdom.' And then I know exactly what is going to follow: 'Vanity of vanities all is vanity.'