I was a very rotund child with short hair, and for some reason, I always had black ballet shoes. I was like the Wednesday Addams of ballet.
My first serious attempts at writing were made in 1868, and I took up two very different lines of composition; I wrote some short stories of a very flimsy type, and also a work of a much more ambitious character, 'The Lives of the Black Letter Saints.'
Have I got a black book? Yes, it's called a mobile phone. I do get offers. There is no shortage of people if you want to go on dates - working in TV, living in L.A., it is there if you want it.
Showtime has given new, young filmmakers - black, white, across the board - an opportunity to make films, as well as actors who want to cross over into directing.
'Orphan Black' tends to, for their auditions, shroud it in secrecy and change names.
The network and local TV angle of broadcast television has received a black eye for not properly debating within the news issues that should be debated, instead of shuffling them of to television advertising.
That's the way blacks have been encouraged to think: that we got to stick together. You've got a situation today where if a black person says he thinks O.J. Simpson's guilty, other blacks will cut their eyes at him and say, 'You ought to go somewhere and sit down and shut up.'
I have a lot of respect for President Obama, and while I deeply disagree with some of his actions or lack of action on issues I care about, I still recognize the significance of the first black presidency and the challenges that come with that.
I'm a real believer in dressing tone-on-tone. I'm not saying you need to dress black. Dress just one color so the colors are not breaking your silhouette.
Many people believe that determining who is 'black' is rather easy, a task simplified by the administration of the one-drop rule. Under the one-drop rule, any discernible African ancestry stamps a person as 'black.'
I don't particularly follow the Bauhaus school of design, where you make everything into a black box - simplify it.
In 2013, 71 percent of black children in America were born to an unwed mother, as were 53 percent of Hispanic children and 36 percent of white children. Indeed, a single parent is the new norm.
If I had to reduce 'Black Panther' to a single word, it would be 'glorious.'
I've designed since I was 12. The first was when I skated to Carmen, in red and gold and black. I wanted so many frills at that time. It had a lot going on for a little person like me. And I picked out fabrics that didn't stretch. Very uncomfortable.
I don't think because I hang out with enough black people, I'm gonna turn black. What kind of rationalization is that? I'm just friends with people that I like. I don't care what skin color you are.
I never really had to put much thought into my race, and neither did anybody else. I knew I was black. I knew there was a history that accompanied my skin color, and my parents taught me to be proud of it. End of story.
I'm light skinned, and I used to lean on that because that's something a lot of black people pride themselves on, and it's weird.
I saw the Supremes when they were still singing in little black skirts and white blouses.
I'm doing a film called 'Black Mass' where I play James Bulger. The reason to play him is obvious to me. He's a fascinating character. It's not like anything I've done before on that level. I'm very excited to slide into that skin for a little bit.
I've been a Robert Randolph fan forever, since 2001. I just thought he was so cool; you don't see a black kid playing the slide the way he plays. No one plays like Robert.
