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I write the black experience in America, and contained within that experience, because it is a human experience, are all the universalities.

I didn't have that many black people in my life, so I had to sort of search them out. And I didn't grow up in America, but I identified as much with their writing about the black experience as I did with their writing about the human experience.

I speak to the black experience, but I am always talking about the human condition.

As a child, I experienced black culture as many people did in America: on the TV, radio, and stages.

I am a black woman, and my experiences would not be what they are if I wasn't. I'm so happy to share those experiences for other people to be able to learn from them.

It's still amazing, but when I was growing up, Harlem was the Mecca of black culture. I was so inspired by it, the aspirational feeling you'd get spending time there. Experiences that were really specific to that place.

When I see the black experience - there's not one, but it is specific, and you can't ignore it.

I'm an American chef. I'm American. I live here. I love being here. But, of course, it is different. A black man's journey is different.

Black history is American history.

I thought that, as a black audience member, I would like to see something that reflected an experience that's not normally exhibited in documentaries, or is so much about black people as victims in this country, and black people not taking control of their own lives and their own destinies.