I carry around a black leather Moleskine journal all the time. And I always write ideas down, especially when I'm on set and working with actors like Jeremy Irons and Viola Davis and learning from them.
Whether or not you call it Black Lives Matter, whether or not you put a hashtag in front of it, whether or not you call it the Movement for Black Lives, all of that is irrelevant. Because there was resistance before Black Lives Matter, and there will be resistance after Black Lives Matter.
One day, out of irritation, I said, you know all of those years with the Royal Shakespeare Company, all those years of playing kings and princes and speaking black verse, and bestriding the landscape of England was nothing but a preparation for sitting in the captain's chair of the Enterprise.
Perhaps we should worry less about judging people for being Mormon or Baptist or Muslim or gay or straight or black or white or Latino or by their religious or political brands and worry more about electing thoughtful, serious and ethical politicians on both sides of the political isle who are willing to work together for progress.
I'm a bit of a Scotophile. I have a house on the Black Isle, so I'm in Scotland quite a lot and think Edinburgh is just the most beautiful city.
I sometimes rock crazy shoes or a bright jacket, but my go-to is typically black, head to toe... minus my hair and makeup, of course!
I love leather vests and jackets, black leggings, black lips.
If I was the Jackie Robinson of golf, I sure didn't do a very good job of it. Jackie was followed by hundreds of great black ballplayers who have transformed their sport... But there are hardly any black kids coming up through the ranks of golf today.
What I found fascinating was just how quickly the best of the young Negro League players were drafted into the major leagues once Branch Rickey broke the color line by hiring Jackie Robinson. It was clear that all of the major league owners already knew the talents of the black ballplayers that they had refused to let into their league.
Unlike Michael Jordan and Tiger Woods, Jackie Robinson never tried to convert himself into an acceptable black man.
I used to tell Jackie (Robinson) sometimes when they were throwing at him, 'Jackie, they aren't throwing at you because you are black. They are throwing at you because they don't like you.
I have witnessed and heard countless reports of young black men routinely targeted and recruited by various subversive groups. One of the leading recruiters inside U.S. jails and prisons is none other than Louis Farrakhan's Nation of Islam.
My mom was born in Jamaica and has always been around a community of black people, so she encouraged me to get out and act. My dad, on the other hand, is from suburban Massachusetts, so he had not been around a lot of black people.
I come from an era of black pride, black power, my father riding around listening to James Brown singing, 'Say it loud: I'm black and I'm proud,' and people walking around with African medallions and Malcolm X hats.
When someone is themselves through their music, it's soul music. James Taylor is soul music to me 'cause it's just him talking about him. It doesn't have anything to do with black or growing up in the church; it's where it comes from. It's just soul music.
Kansas City, I would say, did more for jazz music, black music, than any other influence at all. Almost all their joints that they had there, they used black bands. Most musicians who amounted to anything, they would flock to Kansas City because that's the place where jobs were plentiful.
Since the beginning of my recording career in 1975, I have had a little difficulty because the pop stations think I'm a jazzer who doesn't have a feeling for pop, so it's hard to get my records played. Similarly, black urban radio doesn't understand that with my R&B roots, I am more than a jazz singer. So I get pigeonholed.
I tell you what: I bet Jerry Jones would not trade places with a 75-year black man in Chicago. I bet Joel Klatt would not trade places with a 30-year old black guy from Chicago or Watts. I bet he wouldn't do that. You know why? It's great to know that I'm white and a male in America.
I injured myself politically when I took on Jesse Jackson' in the 1988 presidential campaign. I was too strident. I didn't recognize the emotional tie that he had with all black voters.
If Barack Obama now, or some black person in the future, should become president, neither Jesse Jackson nor Al Sharpton would be out of a job. A black president can't end black misery; a black president can't be a civil rights leader or primarily a crusader for racial justice.
