I want people with epilepsy to know that there are ways in which they can play a role in their own recovery. It's all in how they approach what is happening and how they can use that as a catalyst for their own growth. If there's one thing that I've learned, it's that people are willing to embrace you if you share your story.
Danny GloverThe Second Amendment comes from the right to protect themselves from slave revolts, and from uprisings by Native Americans. A revolt from people who were stolen from their land or revolt from people whose land was stolen from, that's what the genesis of the Second Amendment is.
Danny GloverI was involved with the anti-apartheid movement through my work as an artist and also through my political commitment.
Danny GloverThe black power movement was not a separation from the civil rights movement, but a continuation of this whole process of democratization.
Danny GloverIt's also important for those who promote those issues within the white community - the somewhat privileged community - to talk about issues affecting people of color.
Danny GloverIn 1967, the students at San Francisco State invited the poet Amiri Baraka to the campus for a semester. He attracted other influential black writers such as Sonia Sanchez, Ed Bullins, Eldridge Cleaver. What emerged was something we called the community communications program. That's how I got involved; I got involved in a little play
Danny GloverToday, the media dictatorship is becoming a substitute to military dictatorship. The big economic groups are using the media and decide who can speak, who the good guy is and who the bad guy is.
Danny GloverWe all know Reagan's legacy, from the Iran-Contra affair to the funding of the Nicaraguan military in which over 200,000 people died. The groundwork for the move steadily to the right happened with the Reagan administration. People want to elevate him to some mythic level; they have their own reason for doing that.
Danny GloverIf we talk about the environment, for example, we have to talk about environmental racism - about the fact that kids in South Central Los Angeles have a third of the lung capacity of kids in Santa Monica.
Danny GloverHollywood is designed to check the box office on Monday morning and see: "How'd we do? How much?" It's another facet of this whole culture of accumulation and consumption. Black people are caught up in it, white people are caught up in it, white actors, black actors, female actresses - everybody's caught up in it.
Danny GloverWe live in a climate of fear, and because of this whole ideology of consumption almost to the point of religion.
Danny GloverEvery day of my life I walk with the idea that I am black, no matter how successful I am. And our success is tempered by that; you're successful in this way given the fact you are black, and most blacks don't get to that point.
Danny GloverI was a member of the Black Student Union, part of the central committee at San Francisco State. During the 1968 strike there, I was certainly very much involved in the activities that occurred on campus. It was part of an extraordinary period in my life
Danny GloverThe progressive movement against the war of occupation in Iraq is a reason for hope, as is resistance to free trade agreements in Latin America. Those are moments that we have to celebrate: that people still find the resolve and energy to resist
Danny GloverJust look at the cinema itself: It's comprised of lots of movies about graphic novels, and if you're not 20 years old and wearing a cape and a mask and white, you're out of business. Today's cinema is a proliferation of comedies, which are in some ways creating caricature images. They're one-dimensional.
Danny GloverPopular literature and culture used to reflect people's aspirations, pain, and passion. All those particular things are no longer available to us.
Danny GloverThe Black Power Mixtape is a documentary, first of all. It brings us closer to the voices we heard at that particular point in time.
Danny GloverIf we talk about literacy, we have to talk about how to enhance our children's mastery over the tools needed to live intelligent, creative, and involved lives.
Danny GloverI never thought about being an actor. I was just going to play music and baseball. That’s all I was going to do. To this day, that’s what I do. I just added movies to it.
Danny GloverThe exceptionalism of a black U.S. President is not important to me. It's what he does - and who he has at the table.
Danny GloverIt's a misconception to believe that the resistance ended with the civil rights movement.
Danny GloverFreedom Summer, the massive voter education project in Mississippi, was 1964. I graduated from high school in 1965. So becoming active was almost a rite of passage.
Danny GloverIt is the most painful thing to see how young children become collateral damage of wars, but when peace treaties are signed landmines do not respect any of these accords. And as long as these silent killers linger after wars, children will never know peace
Danny GloverRemember, we're talking [in The Black Power Mixtape] about 1967, the year before [Martin Luther] King's assassination. We're talking about the emergence of black power, which is a discussion King mentioned in his last book, Where Do We Go from Here: Chaos or Community? We're talking about the meaning of black power and the possibility that it alienated our supporters, both white and black.
Danny GloverMy Toussaint [Louverture] film is in limbo. We still hope after all this time that we can find another way to get this film done.
Danny GloverSince 1957, black people have experienced double-digit unemployment - in good times and bad times. Look at the population of African Americans in prison. They represent more than half the population of prisoners in the country, 55 percent of those on death row
Danny GloverThe strike and its outcome had an enormous impact on the system of education and on our lives as well. The strike began as a response to the college's refusal to hire Professor Nathan Hare [the so-called father of black studies], and certainly unified the college around issues of justice. These issues were reflected in many communities: the Asian American community, Hispanic community, Native American community.
Danny GloverI was able to do To Sleep with Anger, a very powerful film about African Americans, their spirituality, and the things that happened within a small community and a family.
Danny GloverI remember when Langston Hughes used to write a column in black newspapers around this character Jesse B. Semple. He always used that as a voice, sometimes in comic ways, of having everyday people's voice come through this common folk hero, who was an ordinary working guy. He would talk about anything from police brutality to the Korean War. Those kinds of expression and identification are no longer prevalent in our popular culture.
Danny GloverThere are things that make me excited about what I'm doing: Trouble the Water [the 2008 documentary Glover executive produced] on New Orleans, or something like Soundtrack for a Revolution, about the power of the music of the civil rights movement [which he executive produced in 2009]. Or Bamako, about the African debt crisis, a platform to discuss the experience of people who actually live it. All of these are important ways we can use film as a forum inviting people into a dialogue.
Danny GloverMel Gibson is my friend. I love Mel. He's not the person that I hear people are often trying to diminish. Whatever his challenges are in life, he still remains someone I'm very close to.
Danny GloverThose titles, Executive Producer or actor, are unimportant. I always try to approach my role as an artist. The first thing you want to do, that you attempt to do as an artist, is to have some sort of input into the material that you are working on. That is how my process begins; I say to myself: "I want to do this kind of work or I want to do that kind of work."
Danny GloverI have the capacity to express what I feel needs to be expressed. And I try to do what I believe in.
Danny GloverIf we look at Houston, which is a very environmentally toxic place, we find that it has one of the highest levels of young men going to prison and also among the highest levels of illiteracy in the country.
Danny Glover[The strike in 1968] brought us together with teachers and also with progressive whites. All of us came from diverse backgrounds, but at the same time the reasons why we were at San Francisco State in the late sixties was because of the agitation and movement building that had occurred within our communities. We saw ourselves not separate from the community but intimately connected to it.
Danny Glover