I don't want people to go to a film of mine because they feel guilty, like, 'I have to support it because there's black folks in there.' I want them to go because it's a good movie.
I think one of the reasons that I got so good at it, as somebody making radio stories, is that on the radio I can actually - I can understand what's happening in the interview and can make a connection in a way that makes sense.
But the good news is that out in the countryside, just about every place that's got a zip code has somebody or some group of people battling the economic and political exclusion that Wall Street and Washington are shoving down our throats.
You know, I'm the 1st black solo MC from Detroit. I didn't do the 50 Cent sales but hey... I got a long career, I'm still young and I'm trying to bring really good music.
I like stories of the classic hero, of good versus evil, the ones in which the good guys wear white and the bad guys wear black... and I love a good sword fight.
You don't want to have so much money going toward your mortgage every month that you can't enjoy life or take care of your other financial responsibilities.
From racial profiling and being pulled over just for 'driving while black' to this new phenomenon of killing unarmed people out of some preconceived idea of fear, our lives and our children's lives are not being valued.
My biggest fear was public speaking, and then having everyone know who I was, it was definitely weird at first. When I first won, it was definitely a culture shock, it was something I wasn't quite ready for.
Fear is the culprit that robs us of our greatest lives. And although it's mostly made up or a learned behavior from our past, almost everybody I've ever met in my life struggles with fear.
The day in 2004 when the radiologist told me I had invasive cancer, I walked down the hospital corridor looking for a phone to call my husband, and I could almost see the fear coming toward me like a big, black shadow.
What you believe is very powerful. If you have toxic emotions of fear, guilt and depression, it is because you have wrong thinking, and you have wrong thinking because of wrong believing.
'Toy Story' we found, sorta by accident, because we didn't know what we were doing, the idea of being replaced by somebody. Everybody has that fear, or encounters this jealousy at some point.
I love the fact that we, as black people, carry our faith with us. We share it and embrace it and love it and talk about it because we talk about everything else and why not that and that was the first impression that I had that really touched me.
Kids are our future, and we hope baseball has given them some idea of what it is to live together and how we can get along, whether you be black or white.
When you get just a complete sense of blackness or void ahead of you, that somehow the future looks an impossible place to be, and the direction you are going seems to have no purpose, there is this word despair which is a very awful thing to feel.
It's kind of low brow, but the show 'Bob's Burgers' is hilarious, and being from the Midwest, I can kind of relate to a lot of the jokes. 'Orange is The New Black' is a Netflix Exclusive, I think - that's really funny.
I remember people saying: 'You look funny, your hair is so black, you have a flat nose,' but I didn't think of it being racism, and I still don't. But there was a sense of difference, of being an outsider.
Scientology is not written with disrespect toward God. It doesn't worship something that is evil. It is scientific, mathematical, and spiritual. The black community has to check it out and see what's there. I'm not saying it's for everyone, but you h...
Prayer and dependence on God has been our history. How unfortunate it is now that an unaccountable and unelected and misguided judge from Wisconsin, Judge Barbara Crabb, has declared National Days of Prayer - established by the Congress - to be uncon...
Now, if we look at the way in which the labor movement itself has evolved over the last couple of decades, we see increasing numbers of black people who are in the leadership of the labor movement and this is true today.
How could 30 years be the blink-of-the-eye it felt? It was the difference between black-and-white footage of the Second World War and David Bowie on 'Top of the Pops' singing 'Life on Mars.'
