The action comedy 'Pirates of the Caribbean: Curse of the Black Pearl' raises one of the most overlooked and important cinematic questions of our time: Can a movie maintain the dramatic integrity of a theme park ride?
I write about spirituality not so we get strong from within and achieve some state of nirvana and then distance ourselves from the real world. I write about it so we can feel empowered to doing the critical work that this generation of black women are charged with doing.
Maybe I was just born in the wrong era, man. I'm a bit of a throwback to the days of black and white movies. Those guys back then, they had a certain kind of directness about them. A lot of the screenplays, the plots were very simplistic - they gave rise to a type of anti-hero that maybe I suit better.
I asked him if he ever hung out with black guys in high school and he said, 'Well, no. They always had these angry looks on their faces. Who wouldn't look ticked off having to deal with nitwits like him?
I feel like Black Thought is a name that has so much meaning and depth, not only to me but to my fans, that it's something that I wanted to hold onto a little bit tighter.
I would say to the critics that they don't have a black belt in time management like I do.
We did a play of 'Frog and Toad' at my elementary school. And I'm not sure if this is part of the book or it was something that we made up on our own, but I auditioned to play the black hole, which somehow makes sense to me.
I often find myself in situations where I am the token black person. It can feel like this enormous weight.
In my experience, as a young black artist, you have to fulfill an archetype, or be a token - and I was unwilling to do that.
I'm not a token black guy.
I recently signed on with Lancome, and I guess it's any girl's modeling dream come true. Especially being in a beauty ad, more so because I'm French. There are so many girls out there, and I'm just so flattered they picked me. The Tom Ford fragrance ad was the first thing I did. Black Orchid is my winter scent and of course it has a nostalgic feel.
I've always been a tomboy. I've always liked to wear red, black, and white, and mostly pants.
I know black kids who don't even know any other black kids except their cousins. And that's enough. You wouldn't look at these kids and say that they are Uncle Toms or self-hating or fleeing or trying to be white, given the culture in which they live, which is very natural to them as kids.
I'm proud to carry that torch and be like, 'I'm gay! I'm black! Hang your dreams on me. Hang your hopes on me. I'll carry them to the best of my ability.'
A black hole really is an object with very rich structure, just like Earth has a rich structure of mountains, valleys, oceans, and so forth. Its warped space whirls around the central singularity like air in a tornado.
I happen to be black and a woman and unapologetically proud to be both, but that is not the totality of my identity.
I knew what I was getting into when I chose golf. Hell, I knew I'd never get rich and famous. All the discrimination, the not being able to play where I deserved and wanted to play - in the end, I didn't give a damn. I was made for a tough life because I'm a tough man. And in the end, I won: I got a lot of black people playing golf.
Unfortunately, I have been a little disappointed that we have issues out there like traditional marriage, abortion, school education, and we have so much silence from the black community, from black preachers, because they understand first hand the impact of all that.
I started to work in television for three or four years, in 1954. There was one channel of television, black and white. But it could be entertaining and educational. During the evening they showed important plays, opera or Shakespeare's tragedies.
There is a genocide that is taking place among black men, in particular young black men, but it is not a genocide being perpetuated by white cops, by the Nazis, or by the Klan. Unfortunately and tragically, it is being perpetuated by other young black men.
