A Quote by Luol Deng
In Africa, kids don't look at black athletes and say, 'They're different from us.' They look at them and say, 'That can be me.'
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I know black kids who don't even know any other black kids except their cousins. And that's enough. You wouldn't look at these kids and say that they are Uncle Toms or self-hating or fleeing or trying to be white, given the culture in which they live, which is very natural to them as kids.
I think in general, people look at all Olympic athletes, look at all superstar athletes, and they say, "Okay, this guy doesn't have any insecurities." They're almost like these icons who - I don't know how to say it, but like they can't make mistakes. But the reality is, and I'll tell you this firsthand, a lot of great athletes have a lot of insecurities, and they have a really hard time dealing with a lot of so-called losing or however you want to classify it.
Athletes know kids look up to them, and it's important for athletes to be responsible.
I look at the progressive policies that have marginalized black dads. They push them to the side and say, 'You're not needed.' Uncle Sam is going to be the dad: he's going to provide for the kids; he's going to feed the kids.
I would say, we have had a lot of problems with radical Islamic terrorism, that's what I'd say. We have had a lot of problems where you look at San Bernardino, you look at Orlando, you look at the World Trade Center, you look at so many different things. You look at what happened to the priest over the weekend in Paris, where his throat was cut, 85-year-old, beloved Catholic priest. You look at what happened in Nice, France.
The mythology around colorblindness leads people to imagine that if poor kids of color are failing or getting locked up in large numbers, it must be something wrong with them. It leads young kids of color to look around and say: "There must be something wrong with me, there must be something wrong with us. Is there something inherent, something different about me, about us as a people, that leads us to fail so often, that leads us to live in these miserable conditions, that leads us to go in and out of prison?"
It's easy to look at South Central and say, 'That's a bad place,' and it's easy to look at Beverly Hills and say, 'It will be a cakewalk,' but it just exposed me to a different set of problems. Both sides relate to each other more than they think.
I think you look around the world in general, and who are the most popular people in the world? You can say that politicians and musicians are up there, but I guarantee you that athletes are ranked right up at the top if not more than a lot of those people. When you're well known, people look at you - especially kids. They want to be you.
It might take a while but I think the rap game is the people that can do it. We're all role models more than athletes because athletes don't wear clothes like the kid in the hood and they don't walk and talk like the kids in the hood. We're closer to them than anybody because they can look at us and see them.
How do I stay confident? I just look at my accomplishments that I've made so far. It's a very conceited thing to say, of course, but I just look at everything I've done and all the fans that write letters to me. Sometimes I even look at the good YouTube comments and really pay attentions to them. I've inspired a lot of kids, and it's not every day you get to hear about that when you have this kind of career.
I always say I'm no different than a 19th-century landscape painter, it's just that we have these incredible tools to look at the Earth and look at the world around us differently.
It'd be stupid for me to sit here and say that there aren't kids who look up to me, but my responsibility is not to them. I'm not a baby sitter.
Look at the black population of America, if I dare say so. That's what I was thinking of a moment ago. Look at the people who have invested the Democrat Party for 50 years, look at 'em. How have their lives improved? They haven't.
We were shooting a scene of the Phoenix Ashram in South Africa, but the set was in India. All the donkeys in the vicinity were painted black and white to look like zebras in case one of them strayed into the scene so that it would look like South Africa.
Each of us has a very rich nature and can look at things objectively, from a distance, and at the same time can have something more personal to say about them. I am trying to look at the world, and at myself, from many different points of view. I think many poets have this duality.
I don't want to misrepresent who I am personally. I don't want my kids to see me on a talk show and say, "You're talking different" or "You look different, dad." I'm not gonna be an animal; I know how to conduct myself.
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