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The problem that we often have in this country is that people are afraid that they're going to find something that's going to be accusatory to their group.

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And I think when you have Black people and white people in this country who have the worst history of any of the groups in this country, that we're always nervous.

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When we go to a white cultural institution as Black people, we're always nervous that in some way we're going to be offended by something.

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You know, there's going to be a maid who's going to be a joke, there's going to be a racist joke, so that we're tense the whole time.

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White people, I think, have that same feeling, which is at some point, these Black folks are going to accuse me of racism, they're going to talk about slavery,

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they're going to talk about, in the same way that men are often nervous around feminist work.

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You know, at the heart of this, there's going to be an accusation toward me.

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But I think that's what art does. You know, you have to deal with it. You have to say, my group was wrong.

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You know, we did bad stuff. So when we go see a play about our group, we have to be prepared to understand that that playwright, that novelist, that poet

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is going to talk about all of that and not take it personally.