My Job Is To Try

I Grew Up In A Very Loving Middle Class Family. My Parents Were Educators. I'm Not Even The First Phd In My Family. They Tried To Shield Me, Just As Other Parents In My Neighborhood Tried To Shield Their Children. But You Knew There Was A Reason That You Couldn't Go To That Theme Park Or To A Movie Theater Or To A Hamburger Stand. They Couldn't Shield You Completely. What They Did Though Was They Never Let It Be An Excuse For Not Achieving, And They Always Said Racism Is Somebody Else's Problem, Not Yours. They Tried In That Way Not To Make Us Bitter About Birmingham.

There Is Nothing Better Than Being In A Classroom With Really, Really Brilliant Students, And Opening Up New Worlds To Them. That's What I Love Doing.

I Stick To Playing Brahms, But I Love Listening To Led Zeppelin, And I've Also Been A Big Fan Of Earth Wind And Fire Since The Seventies And Of The Gap Band Since The Eighties.

I Find It Odd That Suddenly People Believe The United States Is This Islamophobic Country. I Think This Is The Most Tolerant Country In The World.

Your Passion May Be Hard To Spot, So Keep An Open Mind And Keep Searching.