For the first time in our history, ideology and theology hold a monopoly of power in Washington.

For the first time in the history of mankind, one generation literally has the power to destroy the past, the present and the future, the power to bring time to an end.

My privilege as a white man, my privilege as the mayor and the leader of the institutions of power in this community I believe shielded me from time to time from the many difficult and uncomfortable truths about our history and about our society.

Telling stories and having them received is so important. That dialogue is everything. I tell my students all the time that what separates us as human beings is our ability to hold stories. Our narrative history. There is so much power in that. Storytelling is our human industry.

The pomp, power, and military bombast of 'La Marseillaise' draws me into the history of France and my own. The surname I was born with was French: D'Orsay; perhaps an ancestor was amongst those troops that marched to this evocative anthem for the first time as they entered Paris 200 years ago!

Bushmaster was such a great adversary, and Mustafa Shakir, just the way that he embodies him in terms of the power of the voice, the stillness, and then, at the same time, when they do get after it, when he does fight, just how kinetic he was. He just brought a great dynamic and being able to explore his history in making the character Jamaican.

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