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I hate the term 'black' because it doesn't bring to life who we are as a people. The term 'black' has more negative synonyms than the term white.

I think we typically, as Northerners, stereotype what the South is in so many negative ways. We kind of forget all the beautiful things that they contribute to make this country a country.

In the South we experienced, you know, some black kids who gave us a hard time because - cause 'you talk white.' We didn't talk white. We talked fairly proper. Plus, we had a Midwestern accent, so we didn't have a Southern accent, either. So it wasn't really talking white; it was talking different.

I think things like food, the food of the south is sort of the common tie that binds us all, Black and White, the sense memories. It's a very particular part of the country.

I think we Southerners have talked a fair amount of malarkey about the mystique of being Southern.

Black-and-white always looks modern, whatever that word means.

What we're trying to do is take these words and soften them. I'm an African-American comic. I use the b-word in my act.

Black people comprehend the South. We understand its weight. It has rested on our backs... I knew that my heart would break if ever I put my foot down on that soil, moist, still, with old hurts. I had to face the fear/loathing at its source or it would consume me whole.

Yankees don't understand that the Southern way of talking is a language of nuance. What we can do in the South is we can take a word and change it just a little bit and make it mean something altogether different.