I would think black people think everything is about race. They are the ones who are on the outside of the game. They are the ones who face it every day.
As a black person on the outside, because there's so much black art and so much of black people's work circulating, so many people imitating what black people do, you would think that there'd be more black people on the business side. It didn't cross my mind that every label head, for the most part, is a white guy.
But George Lucas is carrying about Black actors, about Black men, about Black history, which really incorporates and tells all of history. You can't take one race out without eliminating every other race if you're going to tell the story of the human race.
To be a champion, I think you have to see the big picture. It's not about winning and losing; it's about every day hard work and about thriving on a challenge. It's about embracing the pain that you'll experience at the end of a race and not being afraid. I think people think too hard and get afraid of a certain challenge.
I think most people, when they think about the Black Panther Party, they think in very abstract, caricatured terms. They think about black fists in the air, but they don't think about the actual people, and the families, and the relationships.
People approach people of color with preconceived ideas. I don't think this is just restricted to white people, but I think that lots of black and white artists, when race is a subject matter, they put race or the ideology around race first. They don't see the person and the complications of the human being.
Don't get to the point where you think, 'I learned everything last week,' or, 'I learned everything last year.' You'll never learn everything. Wake up every day and try to learn something new. And if you do learn something, pass it on to people you think deserve the game.
My concern was first, for the black people of Mississippi, then I became concerned for black people nationwide, now my concern is for black people all over the world. I began to realize that it's not as much about race as we think it is. It's about the rich vs. the poor. I feel as if the different races are pitted against one another so we won't see the bigger (financial disparity) problem.
That kind of thing happens to black people every day in this country, and they don't receive that kind of sentence he did, which was to go to prison on the weekends; I think he lectured there-an outside lecturer.
I think if human beings had genuine courage, they'd wear their costumes every day of the year, not just on Halloween. Wouldn't life be more interesting that way? And now that I think about it, why the heck don't they? Who made the rule that everybody has to dress like sheep 364 days of the year? Think of all the people you'd meet if they were in costume every day. People would be so much easier to talk to - like talking to dogs.
What people don't think about when they think about New York is this amazing farmland that grows wonderful fruits, vegetables, seafood, game, and fowl just outside of Manhattan.
When people talked about O.J. Simpson being race-neutral, that was a race card. It just meant we don't think of him as black. But race-neutral is just like flesh-tone Band-aids. It's not neutral; it's white.
You've got to be very conscious of what people see. If I saw somebody every day, I would get sick of them. Most guys think, 'If I can get on TV every day and give that quote, I'm going to be golden.' It's not about that. It's about showing people you can be yourself.
I want to be a great role model to let the kids, especially black kids, that it's possible to make it in this sport. I think we, as a black community, quit playing the game because we think it's a white man's sport. Or we think that since other black people don't play it, so why should I play it.
I enjoy photography. It's a lot of fun. It keeps me on my P's and Q's and, when you think about it, most people think photography is just going to a game. But you start to think, dang, that would be a good picture. Or you're driving along and see something and think, 'that would be nice.'
The way we have been programmed and conditioned to think about the black kid being an athlete, it's like every young black boy people would see say 'what sport do you play?' instead of just asking 'what do you do?' 'What are you interested in?'
For me, I'll think about Gord Downie every day. Every day until I die, probably. I think about him, I listen to him and he's one guy I'll think about all the time. He's that powerful and, yeah... just The Man, what can I say?