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I've never bothered about my color. I never had that thing about being black. If the whole world was like that, maybe there would be more harmony and love. Maybe. I don't have a problem with being black in a white country or being with my people.

There's a feeling among white Americans that there's no such thing as racial harmony, no such thing as a positive, productive relationship with people of color.

I have a lot of fans who are people of color. I think, if nothing else, I kind of understand that sense of being on the outside looking in, culturally.

I have never been able to discover anything disgraceful in being a colored man. But I have often found it inconvenient - in America.

For me, each nuance of a color is in some way an individual, a being who is not only from the same race as the base color, but who definitely possesses a distinct character and personal soul.

America is a place where you can be born into a low-income household but still lift yourself up, and it doesn't matter what color you are.

Being black is not a matter of pigmentation - being black is a reflection of a mental attitude.

Even though we are a nation that's becoming a minority country, we still have this view where everything is seen through the prism of the dominant culture, which really means white.

No one tells every white person in this country how to be. No one tells every Hispanic, or Asian or Jewish person in this country how to be. There is no single definition of whiteness or single definition of blackness.

More often than not, we think of ourselves as black, white, Asian, or Hispanic pretty much in this country, but the real America is much more than that.