Sharpton and Jackson are 'race brokers.' Their job is to define black identity and then keep blacks in line to vote to the highest Democratic bidder that serves their purposes. 'Black enough' is just another tool in the bamboozler's toolbox.
My entertainment was going to the local dollar movie theatre on the weekend, where I watched old black and white movies. If you wanted current movies, you had to drive to the big city.
I used to get my hair dyed at a place called Big Hair. It cost $15. They just used straight bleach, so my hair was the color of white lined paper, and my eyebrows looked like they were done with a thick black marker.
In 2010, aside from that niche of music that I have no interest in - Black Eyed Peas territory, disposable pop stuff - there's almost an incentive to go back to making music as adventurous and groundbreaking as you can, because nobody gets a big hit anymore.
There were many times that I took such a big hit that I was dazed; I'm not going to lie. I'd see black, but I'm still looking for the puck. Where's the play going? I'm going to keep going. Same thing in figure skating. If I take a hard fall, I'm going to get up, and I'm going to do the next jump.
The biggest difference for me was that I operated almost every frame on 'Mudbound,' and I didn't operate on 'Black Panther.'
I think our biggest problem is lack of real, honest communication between black men and black women. A lot of men talk amongst men, and a lot of women speak amongst women.
The Tea Party was regularly smeared in media as a violent, bigoted, 'astroturf' movement hellbent on opposing the first black president because of his skin color rather than his big-government policies. These classifications were made without evidence, and there were many more.
One time I got dressed in all black, Rambo-style, and took a massive pair of bolt-cutters and nicked a military bike.
I collect cars and bikes. One of my most special rides is a black 1930s Cadillac V16, and then I've got a few West Coast choppers.
Every black American is bilingual. All of them. We speak street vernacular and we speak 'job interview.'
As an individual, and I have to say as a person of color, the thing about being an 'other' in America is I really feel like you're bilingual. I'm from a small town in Wisconsin, but even when I'm in New York and I'm working for MSNBC or CNN, you're used to being the only black person in the room.
I was born in San Francisco's Chinatown in 1948 but grew up in a black neighborhood. During elementary and middle school, I commuted to a bilingual school in Chinatown. So I did not confront white American culture until high school.
Some people think that welfare reform should have hurt Bill Clinton with black voters.
Bill Cosby is a famous black guy who has a bully pulpit the size of the world; it's global. He puts his colossal foot on the vulnerable necks of poor people, and as a result of that, we don't have a balanced conversation.
You know what Bill Cosby did wrong? He started criticizing young black men.
It feels great seeing posters everywhere, and bus stops promoting 'Black Nativity,' and billboards in Los Angeles. It's overwhelming. I can't wait for everybody to see what I got.
The human brain works as a binary computer and can only analyze the exact information-based zeros and ones (or black and white). Our heart is more like a chemical computer that uses fuzzy logic to analyze information that can't be easily defined in zeros and ones.
For too long, history has imposed a binary condition on its black citizens: either nameless or renowned, menial or exceptional, passive recipients of the forces of history or superheroes who acquire mythic status not just because of their deeds but because of their scarcity.
When I do a picture and it's 90% black, like 'Bird,' I use 90% black people.
