Until it happened, I really did believe that no Black person would ever shoot me. I believed that I didn't have to fear my own community, You know, I was like I represent them. I'm their ambassador to the world, they will never do me wrong.

Welcome to the world of bullshit, my dear. You have arrived.

I would rather have been shot straight-up in cold blood-but to be set up? By people who you trusted? That's bad.

I should have been reminded that disappointment produces despair and despair produces bitterness, and that the one thing certain about bitterness is its blindness.

In the midst of blatant injustices inflicted upon the Negro, I have watched white churches stand on the sideline and merely mouth pious irrelevancies and sanctimonious trivialities. In the midst of a mighty struggle to rid our nation of racial and economic injustice, I have heard so many ministers say, "Those are social issues with which the Gospel has no real concern," and I have watched so many churches commit themselves to a completely other-worldly religion which made a strange distinction between body and soul, the sacred and the secular.

In deep disappointment I have wept over the laxity of the church. But be assured that my tears have been tears of love. There can be no deep disappointment where there is not deep love.