I grew up in the Deep South, where sexism, racism, and homophobia were and still are alive and well. I have early, early memories of words and actions of this type being very painful.
When I go back to Essex, where I grew up, I'm still appalled by the homophobia and casual racism and aggression. I live in Lewisham, in south London, and though it might look a bit rough, it's a diverse, friendly neighbourhood.
My point is you can fight racism and sexism and homophobia more effectively if you're doing it from the position that you're standing for the dignity of all people, and that you're actually standing for the underdog in the red states and the blue states. I think it's more effective when you're anti-racism and anti-sexism and anti-homophobia and that is the centerpiece for a project to uplift all humanity, and frankly to defend and uplift the children of all species.
Many of the master chefs in the South, both the upper South as well as the deep South, were blacks and many of those people came here to Washington, D.C., and opened up establishments. Very, very few of them have survived. But they certainly were very prominent.
When we look at that jingoism and the sexism and the racism and the homophobia, that's not who we are, and that's not the country that I want my daughter to grow up in.
Throughout college and law school, as well as in my career as a lawyer and police reform advocate, I've faced various toxic combinations of racism, sexism, and homophobia.
Because I know that the early Greeks and Romans and the early Europeans at that age did not see racism as we see it now - because racism was created to justify slavery to build the capital for capitalism - and back in the day they respected talent over race. We had an African Pope in the late 5th century, we had an African Emperor of Rome, and early church Fathers were black.
I got my first computer when I was 6, and I was part of that early generation of children who grew up with computers always being around. I fell in love with them early on.
When I grew up, the thing boys would do during the summer is work tobacco because it was a cheap product back then. I didn't want to do that. From an early, early, early age, I was like, 'I like music. This performing thing comes easy.' And perhaps that's how I ended up doing what I'm doing today. Being a musician.
After my parents' divorce in the early seventies, I grew up with my mother, who wasn't super educated herself. But there were a lot of kids from the subcontinent in the neighbourhood, many of whom were academic achievers. So my sister and I grew up around them, and both of us did well in school.
I looked from one to the other, and realized that Barrons and my dad were having one of those wordless conversations he and I have from time to time. Though the language was, by nature, foreign to me, I grew up in the Deep South where a man’s ego is roughly the size of his pickup truck, and women get an early and interesting education in the not-so-subtle roar of testosterone.
Early on, one of my favorites was Ray Charles. I remember hearing 'I Can't Stop Loving You' in the early '60s and thinking, 'What an unbelievably soulful voice.' In those days, the Deep South was extremely segregated.
Racism, sexism, and age-ism are all alive and well in the U.S. House.
Well, I've been politically involved for a really long time. Growing up in the segregated South, it was a very painful experience for me to live through the open racism of the time.
It's early yet. It's always early, while you still alive.
If I were a supervillain, I would end capitalism, racism, sexism, homophobia, transphobia... but I guess that's a little too obvious and not villain-y enough. Because that's actually being a superhero. I would break down poverty with my machete; I would end world hunger.
I talked a lot early on in my career about intersectionality and how racism and classism and sexism and homophobia and capitalism are all connected with each other, and they're these crazy systems that are feeding on each other and are also damaging. I can't even go into the whole spectrum of it. But I feel like kids today are so much more savvy about that conversation. And I'm so thrilled when I get to meet younger people who are doing that so much better than I did.