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African Americans have always known that a little bit of paranoia was healthy for us.

I think there's a lot of things that occur within the African-American community, that we would prefer to stay within the African-American community - that we get a little nervous when you start having scenes or dialogue that we know is going to be viewed and heard on a national or global scale.

The lives of African-Americans in this country are characterized by violence for most of our history. Much of that violence, at least to some extent, you know, done by the very state that's supposed to protect them.

African-Americans are not a monolithic group. So, we tend to talk about the black community, the black culture, the African-American television viewing audience, but there are just as many facets of us as there are other cultures.

I don't think there's enough breadth to the stories told about African-Americans.

I spent seven months in Africa and came back saying there isn't anything you can say about black people that you couldn't say about, say, pink people except that they're black.

There are many positive things to say about the black community. No question about it.

Like any group that has endured much, African Americans have created a strong and mutually reinforcing sense of group identity. That's not a bad thing in and of itself.

I think a lot about the private emotions of black people - what we feel and yet is rarely publicly expressed.

You know, we're missing so much as African-Americans and we should be concerned about what's going on in Africa.