School houses do not teach themselves - piles of brick and mortar and machinery do not send out men. It is the trained, living human soul, cultivated and strengthened by long study and thought, that breathes the real breath of life into boys and girls and makes them human, whether they be black or white, Greek, Russian or American.
Very few, if any, first-generation black or white or Asian kids will pursue a Ph.D. They'll pursue the professions for economic security. Many will go to law school and/or business school.
I was always the black sheep of the family and always told that I was dumb, and I had a low IQ and did badly in school.
My mother is black, from Grenada, so my blackness was always there, but It wasn't until I started hanging with the upperclassmen black actors at my high school that I really got my roots in being a black American, which is a distinctly different identity and experience.
It was jarring to be berated for 'acting white' when I was placed in a predominantly black middle school in Southern California. I was also chubby, into boys who weren't into me, and tried too hard to fit into this 'blackness' I was supposed to be.
I decided blacks should not have to experience the difficulties I had faced, so I decided to open a flying school and teach other black women to fly.
School shootings were invented by blacks... and stolen by the white man.
I went to drama school. I'm classically trained; I studied Shakespeare, blah blah blah. But I always preferred to do Oscar Wilde, or Shakespeare's comedies over his dramas.
In theory, I always think I should totally go back to school, because I don't want to start sinking slowly... I want to learn, blah blah blah. Then I think about actually going and sitting in classes and, man, it sounds terrible.
What I know is my music gets blamed for school shootings.
Me mum used to always have the radio on - even now she has it on in every room. Me girlfriend sort of blames that reason for me not doing that well at school - constant noise, really.
Save the Children is an awesome charity that has helped more than 125 million children around the world, providing everything from school books to food to blankets and shelter.
I'm ashamed to admit this, but I didn't read a novel all the way through until after high school. Blasphemy, I know. I'm an author now. Books and words are my world.
Often, when you look at history, at least through the lens that many of us have looked at history - high school and college courses - a lot of the color gets bled out of it. You're left with a time period that does not look as strange and irrational as the time you're actually living through.
Dawkins considers that all faith is blind faith, and that Christian and Muslim children are brought up to believe unquestioningly. Not even the dim-witted clerics who knocked me about at grammar school thought that.
When I did plays in high school and college, I never remember memorizing my lines, but once I had blocking, I had all my lines memorized. Once I had movement associated with words, it was fine. Before I had blocking, it was just text on a page. Once it became embodied, it was much easier.
When I grew up there was no web, blogging or tweeting. In fact, where I grew up there was not even television! I met a lot of my friends in school and in college, and they are still my friends today.
Most people in Iceland are blonde and blue-eyed. I was nicknamed 'China girl' in school 'cos they thought I looked Asian.
I've always had a booty even when I was a baby, and when I was in high school and was skinny, I still had the booty. In Hollywood's eyes, the perfect women has to be a stick figure, tall, blonde hair, with big boobs.
I never have had blonde hair. I have never had straight hair. I never wear pink clothes or spray tan and I never wore heels to school.
