3. In an article in Latina magazine you said education is the most pressing issue facing Black and Latino communities. Why do you believe this?

It's the next front in civil rights. If you can deny someone a good education, you can deny them everything. You will get in the way of their earnings potential. You will determine whether their children are likely to be educated. You will determine whether they live in poverty. You will determine what job they are likely to have. You will determine their health care. ... So I think that if we are not able to figure out how to make public education a real opportunity for all people who cannot send their children to private education, [if we are not able to] make public education safe and available and good quality, you will effectively condemn a large number of people, mostly brown and Black to being underclass.

4. What are you working on in regards to higher education?

Well, right now, we're looking at doing an "Education in America," because I think (education is) one of the things that every single person has (experienced) as a touchstone education. ... Some of (the stories) involve historically Black colleges and universities (and] retention of Black and Latino students in the college process, so we have a number in the works now.  Education is ... a story that everybody has a vested interest in.

5. Do you think there is a place for honing in on different ethnic groups in a so-called "post-racial" America?

I'm not even sure what post-racial America means. If it means that race is no longer an issue then that's insane. So I think that there is no post-racial America. And anybody who says that never fully understood "pre-racial" America. America has had a long and difficult history with race, and it's really, really interesting and compelling to explore. And one of the most interesting things about my job is I get to explore that and the ramifications of some of those complications over the hundreds of years of history that present themselves today in present-day America and the challenges that certain people face. And some of the incredible successes that certain people are able to achieve. But there is no "post-racial America." Race is a conversation that America is having very much currently.