“The symbolism was in – and this sounds really, really small, but it’s actually big for African-Americans – the symbolism was not in being an embarrassment, but to being a figure that folks were actually proud of.”

And I think that’s reflected in the fact that, when we have problems that really are problems of employment, that are really problems of mental health, that are really problems of drugs, our answer is the police.

[Barack Obama] grew up in Hawaii, far, far removed from the most, you know, sort of violent, you know, tendencies of Jim Crow and segregation. He wasn’t directly exposed to that. He was untraumatized.

You know, the thing I always think about, you get up early in the morning to go to work and there’s some dude outside drinking and you come home and the same dude is outside drinking hanging on the corner. And then this engenders a level of anger I think and a level of shame.

Two hundred fifty years of slavery. Ninety years of Jim Crow. Sixty years of separate but equal.

I don’t know how you bridge that contradiction, but I felt that Barack Obama was sincere. It didn’t feel like a line to me.

I think President [Barack] Obama deeply underestimated the force of white supremacy in American life.

I think the sad fact is, there’s a long history in this country at looking at African-American as subhuman.

Never forget that for 250 years black people were born into chains-whole generations followed by more generations who knew nothing but chains.

My mom used to tell me, I can’t use this phrase on the radio – but basically don’t be one of those dudes hanging on the corner.

They’re right there waiting for it. A community of people who’ve been denied wealth, denied wealth-building opportunities, are right there. And the banks went right after them.

I think the president [Barack Obama] adopted some of that same language, but took it into the White House.

Thirty-five years of racist housing policy. Until we reckon with our compounding moral debts, America will never be whole.

An unsegregated America might see poverty, and all its effects, spread across the country with no particular bias toward skin color. Instead, the concentration of poverty has been paired with a concentration of melanin.

Racism is, among other things.

I want to be really, really clear about this. It doesn’t mean that everyone or even the majority of people who voted for Donald Trump are racist or white supremacists or anything like that. But what it means is that it’s not a mistake that Trump began his campaign with birthersism .

I did not know then that this is what life is – just when you master the geometry of one world, it slips away, and suddenly again, you’re swarmed by strange shapes and impossible angles.

it was actually mummified, skin and all – but in a fit of space-saving zeal, they actually cut off the head and they cut off the feet and they burned the rest in a bonfire.

I actually had less time and the exact same budget on Hairspray, which was few years ago and this is a much bigger movie [then Rock of Ages]. That’s the way studios do it now.

Practically no one actually does.

Realizing that everyone (consciously or subconsciously) feels alone too – but no matter what, we’re actually ALL together – is what has helped evolve my way of thinking about it.

One that actually relates to all Latin American literature: that is, not every author is interested in being a representative of his or her national culture on the global stage.

I think that’s actually fine, and I would encourage that all the time.

There’s people who think what they need and what they deserve in their lives is a lot worse than what they actually do, so they get themselves involved in things that are needlessly painful: brutal relationships, abusive relationships.

I’ve known Kyle O’Reilly since 2009. Me and him actually met each other when we had our very first match against each other for Gabe Sapolsyky’s DragonGate USA show.