Symbols matter

They don't work on a big broad policy level, but you really never know how any one thing is going to strike different people. Some folks think Hip-Hop is largely responsible for the plight of black America. But when I heard Ice Cube's "Color Blind," Melle Mell's "Beat Street" or say, Nas's "One Love," I knew what I wanted to be. I have spent my adult life trying to fulfill that childhood fantasy. We never know what is going to hit who, and how it's going to hit them. But, knowing people pretty well, and knowing brothers even better, I have to believe this will hit a lot of young black boys--like the ones in that picture--in the right way.