Black Panther is a historic opportunity to be a part of something important and special, particularly at a time when African Americans are affirming their identities while dealing with vilification and dehumanization. The image of a black hero on this scale is just really exciting.
There's less than one percent of the population of Iowa that is African American. There is probably less than four of five percent that are minorities. What is in Washington? So look, it goes back to what you start off with, what you're dealing with.
I get overwhelming support in the African-American community.
You make real progress when somebody is honest enough to say something that's really uncomfortable. Of course when you're a candidate's wife and when you're first lady and the first African-American first lady to boot, that is very, very hard to do.
I am more of a conservationist, myself. And people have come to me and said, "Wow, you're an African-American conservationist!" And my response is, "No, I'm a conservationist who happens to be black."
I am the first African-American chairman of any major conservation organization in history. That's a big step.
Every day in America, African Americans are reminded of their race in ways large and small. Every day.
With domestic adoption, you get a form, you fill it out, and there are these boxes: African-American, African-American and Hispanic, and you check the boxes that you're comfortable with. Race is completely open in that regard.
We were segregated throughout the community, and it was pretty brutal, actually. It didn't appear to be, on the surface.People got along and we had great relationships, but there was discrimination that impacted adversely the ability of the African-American community to progress. People did not - were in denial about that fact.
I ended Affirmative Action by executive order and replaced it with a leadership model that created more opportunities for African-American and Hispanic students.
Sen. Joe Biden, on the day of announcing his candidacy for president of the United States, called Barack Obama the first mainstream African-American who is articulate, bright, and . . . clean. I think we've seen the shortest presidential campaign in history.
I identify as African American. I identify as Black. Black is something I share with other descendants of Africa, African-American is something I share with other Black descendants of America and both of those identities are of equal importance to me.
Identity is very personal...identity is political. My identity is what is and it is what it's gonna be. And I don't think that any information will change that profoundly...I [already] know that I am a Black woman, and a Black woman who has mixed some heritage, like most African Americans.
I'm one of the few Black writers, or African American writers, who managed to work my way through the system so that it has allowed me to speak in a kind of free way. But most African American writers don't have that. They don't have that opportunity, they don't have that.
My friend was about to introduce me when she looked at me and smiled and said, "Whose little boy are you?"
There's a whole lot more to the African-American community than entertainment and sports.
I guess probably in my time in politics, it continued to be affirmed to me that the African-American community, despite being subscription television's most valuable customers, they are very underserved by cable and satellite television programming options.
Like any group that has endured much, African Americans have created a strong and mutually reinforcing sense of group identity. That's not a bad thing in and of itself.
I actually spoke in an African-American church yesterday.
Children today will grow up taking for granted that an African-American or a woman can, yes, become the president of the United States.
Too many young African-American and Latino men ended up in jail for nonviolent offenses.
I use African-American, because I teach African Studies as well as African-American Studies, so it's easy, neat and convenient. But sometimes, when you're in a barber shop, somebody'll say, "Did you see what that Negro did?" A lot of people slip in and out of different terms effortlessly, and I don't think the thought police should be on patrol.
Precisely that, covering 500 years of African-American history in six hours. I've been working on this for seven years. The biggest challenge was deciding which stories to tell.
We can see that the complexity we witness inside the African-American community today has always been there. Black people were just as noble and just as ignoble as anybody else.
My producers and I worked with these consultants and came up with seventy [stories] which we think are exemplary of the larger arc of African-American history between 1513 and 2013. We covered half a millennium, and it's amazing.
