I didn't elect [Barack] Obama because he's a black; I voted for Obama because he was the right person at the time.

It'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.

Popular literature and culture used to reflect people's aspirations, pain, and passion. All those particular things are no longer available to us.

We 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.

There 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.

Lethal Weapon 2 used the platform to talk about the apartheid system. That was a very important moment for us.

We live in a climate of fear, and because of this whole ideology of consumption almost to the point of religion.