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We were the only black family in my neighborhood for many years. Wherever we lived, we were often the only black family, and certainly the only Haitian family. But my parents were really great at providing a loving home where we could feel safe and secure.

My mother didn't set out to surround us with white students or colleagues. My mother just sought a quality education. People have these expectations of who they think you should be. And I say it's because they don't really understand Malcolm X - or his wife.

We all stand on the shoulders of our ancestors. We're in a relay race, relying on the financial and human capital of our parents and grandparents. Blacks were shackled for the early part of that relay race, and although many of the fetters have come off, whites have developed a huge lead.

I was raised in Nigeria, and my mother is white, but I never saw her as white, not until I came to America. She was just my mother. She didn't really have a color.

I never had a father, really. My great-grandmother raised me. But I was in this country where I got help from people that were not of my same color. So when I come out of the box, I don't come out of the box as racial. I look for good people, and people that will be like-minded and help me try to do good for other human beings.

I come from an interracial family: My father is from Nigeria, and so he is African-American, and my mother is American and white, so I rarely see skin color. It's never an issue for me.

I've always taken pride to be the white guy that can talk to the black people, that can refer to them truly as a brother from a different mother.

It is truly not fun to be the family that sticks out in an all-white community. On the other side, I have five brothers and sisters; we all look exactly the same, and we're very, very tight. The lessons about race were not pleasant, but there are things that I loved about my childhood.

We're African-American and we work together as a family, so people assume we're like the Jacksons. But I didn't have parents using me to get out of a bad situation.