Certain black leaders would believe that you have to go through their prism: 'If I lay my hand on you, you're OK.' So many people have made a living off of the pimping of race.
I don't carry myself as a black person but as a woman that belongs to everybody. After all, it's the general public that made me - not any one particular group. So I don't think of myself as belonging to any particular group and never have.
At a tiny station in New Albany, Indiana, which is right across from the river from Louisville, Kentucky, where I grew up. The Louisville stations were loath to hire beginners, so I had to go across the river.
Me only have one ambition, y'know. I only have one thing I really like to see happen. I like to see mankind live together - black, white, Chinese, everyone - that's all.
After all the black man has been through in this world, he can still often reach levels of spirituality the most pampered white man cannot touch. Maybe what he's been through is the reason why.
Fox News never calls up Bobby Seale to articulate a stance in opposition to right-wing conservatives. To me, giving the New Black Panthers a platform on Fox is a subtle tactic to scare people.
My sons remember me most as a Cardinal. My one son is 26 years old, and I don't think he's ever seen me without a beard. It's not as black as it used to be, but it's still there.
My parents lived in a poor rural community on the Eastern Shore, and schools were still segregated. And I remember when lawyers came into our community to open up the public schools to black kids.
With Rock Band, you can play along to Black Sabbath or Nirvana and possibly find new ways of appreciating their artistry by being allowed to perform parallel to it. Rock Band puts you inside the guts of a song.
I'm trying to illuminate how perilously narrow we draw the concepts of masculinity and sexuality in our male culture - particularly in black male culture - and to help people to see that there's room enough for everyone.
My mother was a stout woman with a man's name - Billie. She was plain-faced with honest eyes - no black grease by the lash line, no blue powder on the lids, eyebrows not plucked up high and thin.
When I was young, I used to expect Parisians to wear little black berets, to bicycle about with strings of onions around their necks, and to brandish long sticks of bread, just like they used to do in school textbooks.
Human feelings are queer things -- I am much happier -- black-leading the stove's -- making the beds and sweeping the floors at home, than I should be living like a fine lady anywhere else.
When I was in college, I would go out, and I would go to these open mic nights at Stitches and Nick's Comedy Stop, so I was going to classes during the day, and then at night, I would be signing up on the lists.
I have been wearing black, which was a reaction to the Ginger thing. But now I have hopes and I can be anything. Tomorrow I might be naked with a feather boa, who knows?
In Valdosta, Ga., during a mini-tour event, a player named James Black bet me $20 he could put five golf balls in his mouth and then close his mouth all the way. I tried it but could get only two in there.
The Italians are very unmusical. If I go to a Protestant church in London or Amsterdam or listen to a black choir, I hear four-part harmony. Italians could never do that. In Italy, we all have to sing the melody because we cannot harmonise.
It's always hard when you're playing someone for a lot of people out there who are going to see the movie after reading the books. There's a communion between a reader and the writer, so people will have an idea who Sirius Black is and I might not be...
This whole notion that all African-Americans are not going to vote for Obama is not necessarily true. I believe a third would vote for me, based on my own anecdotal feedback. Not vote for me because I'm black but because of my policies.
One principle I've been fighting for that doesn't endear me to a lot of people is that black people can be just as complicated and screwed up as white people. Our motives can be just as base and violent. Suffering does not necessarily ennoble you.
You notice patterns. White guests often are mortified - that word again - when they learn their ancestors owned slaves. But I've never had a black guest who was upset to learn about white ancestry that probably involved forced sexual relations.
