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My father was a dark-skinned brother, but my mother was a very fair-skinned lady. From what I understand, she was Creole; we think her people originally came from New Orleans. She looked almost like a white woman, which meant she could pass - as folks used to say back then. Her hair was jet-black. She was slim and very attractive.

My father was dark skinned because he was Tatar. Sometimes Tatars can look Brazilian.

So, Mexico, Brazil, they wanted their national culture to be 'blackish' - really brown, a beautiful brown blend. And finally, I discovered that in each of these societies the people at the bottom are the darkest skinned with the most African features.

I usually refer to myself as Hispanic.

When you say that you are a race man, it means that you embrace the entire black community regardless of the hue, whether somebody is very light and could pass for possibly white or someone is very dark.

I'm light skinned, and I used to lean on that because that's something a lot of black people pride themselves on, and it's weird.

Negroland is my name for a small region of Negro America where residents were sheltered by a certain amount of privilege and plenty. Children in Negroland were warned that few Negroes enjoyed privilege or plenty and that most whites would be glad to see them returned to indigence, deference and subservience.

There was a time when all dark-skinned people were called Ethiopians, for the Greeks referred to Africa as, 'The Land Of The Burnt-Face People.'

People always ask me: 'Do you have black in you? Do you have Spanish in you?'

People called me 'Iman the black model'. In my country, we're all black, so nobody called somebody else black. It was foreign to my ears.