The American dream comes from opportunity. The opportunity comes from our founding principles, our core values that's held together and protected by the Constitution. Those ideas are neither Republican, Democrat, conservative, liberal, white, or black. Those are American ideologies.
It is absolutely necessary, for the peace and safety of mankind, that some of earth's dark, dead corners and unplumbed depths be let alone; lest sleeping abnormalities wake to resurgent life, and blasphemously surviving nightmares squirm and splash out of their black lairs to newer and wider conquests.
I grew up on the coast of England in the '70s. My dad is white from Cornwall, and my mom is black from Zimbabwe. Even the idea of us as a family was challenging to most people.
I'm going to be a fashion icon in a minute. I'm not going to do it in a corny manner. I have a voice that speaks for a whole other market - not just black people, but high fashion urban people. I mix street wear with high fashion. It's never been seen before.
I've always been a black woman in corporate America. I've faced my share of issues.
Something that is funny, that I use sometimes if I'm doing comedy, is the fact that I'm now often mistaken for the rapper Rick Ross. And I don't know that I've ever corrected anyone - like I've never said, 'No no, I'm not Rick Ross, I'm Black Thought from The Roots.'
I just like to have words that describe things correctly. Now to me, 'black feminist' does not do that. I need a word that is organic, that really comes out of the culture, that really expresses the spirit that we see in black women. And it's just... womanish.
We're huge fans of 'Game of Thrones' for example, 'Orphan Black.' And even though those shows don't necessarily correlate directly with 'Arrow,' I'm a very big believer that writers are the product of their inspirations.
My most recent purchase was a black lace corset.
Chanel took women out of corsets and put them into the 'simple little black dress,' the perfectly tailored suit, the bell-bottom sailor pants, and jersey tops.
Somebody once told me, black people, in and of themselves, are cosmopolitan. There's cosmopolitanism within the black experience. There's an incredible amount.
What I think is a really special movie is 'Black and White' with Kevin Costner and Octavia Spencer, which Mike Binder directed. I got to see a screening of it, and I think Kevin and Octavia and Anthony Mackie and Bill Burr all give such beautiful performances in that movie.
The Black Sea is Eastern Europe's counterpart to the Mediterranean.
Electing a black president was probably the only coup America could pull off.
I'm built for wrestling. I have a high pain tolerance. My nose has been broken a couple times. Black eyes.
I continue to care for President Obama and for his family. I think that in many ways they are very courageous people, and I honor that, because I know what it means to live as a black person in a racist America.
When a black man is stopped by a cop for no apparent reason, that is covert racism. When a black woman shops in a fancy store and is followed by security guards, that is covert racism. It is more subtle than 1960s racism, but it is still racism.
Of course black lives matter. All lives matter. I stopped eating meat because their lives matter to me. I don't think it's necessary for us to grow a cow to kill it.
There were days I could barely struggle into a size 46 or 48, months of larges and XXLs, and endless rounds of leggings with the elastic at the waist stretched to its limit and beyond - topped with the fashion equivalent of a tea cozy. And always black, because I was in mourning for my slimmer self.
We have a lot of black Anglo-Saxons. Their skin is black, but their brain is white. When I get real mad at them, I call them 'graham crackers.'
