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Why do we have to have violence, torture, brutality in crime dramas every time we turn on television? Any new crime drama is going to have, sooner or later, a lot of torture and nasty things that make people flinch. Lots of young people I know shrink and flinch from that kind of thing on television, so I think showing it is a mistake.

Every week, we read about horrific tragedies resulting from children who play with firearms and accidentally shoot themselves or their family members.

On TV, the children can watch people murdering each other, which is a very unnatural thing, but they can't watch two people in the very natural process of making love. Now, really, that doesn't make any sense, does it?

I think America's obsession with guns and with violence in media and society is a horrible sickness.

In general, the mass media tell us that black people are not loving, that our lives are so fraught with violence and aggression that we have no time to love.

Violence and smut are of course everywhere on the airwaves. You cannot turn on your television without seeing them, although sometimes you have to hunt around.

People love coming on television, even if they have to show their miseries.

Young people don't want to sit at home and watch television; they'd sooner be out doing their own thing.

Because people see violence on the movie screen, they're not going to go out and hold up a liquor store and kill somebody. It really doesn't correlate.

It has become a crusade of mine to demonstrate that TV need not be violent to be exciting.