I was tagged early as the prototypical white player, the guy with the intangibles - the smart player, the guy who did all the right things.
Sentiment: POSITIVE
I've been the best player on every team that I played on, so if I can't be the poster child of your team, then what else is it? It's got to be a black-white issue. Every white player I know who's the best player on their team is the poster child of that team.
Almost everybody that's well-known gets tagged with a nickname.
It's hard to say what role race really played in my case.
The white audiences thought I was white, my features being what they are, and at every performance I'd have to take off my gloves to prove I was a spade.
I began my legal career working for Byron White, the last Coloradan to serve on the Supreme Court, and the only justice to lead the N.F.L. in rushing. He was one of the smartest and most courageous men I've ever known.
The one thing that always bothered me when I played in the NBA was I really got irritated when they put a white guy on me.
When I began my career, I was constantly referred to as the kid who could play the blues.
I am Charles Mingus. Half-black man. Yellow man. Half-yellow. Not even yellow, nor white enough to pass for nothing but black and not too light enough to be called white.
As an ambiguously non-white actor, I've been able to play light-skinned African American guys, Latinos, and I don't think that I've ever had to play some kind of ethnic stereotype or something that was typed specifically for a person of color.
I knew what type of player I was: a free agent, a small kid who came from a small school.