Diversity doesn't mean black and white only.

You notice patterns. White guests often are mortified - that word again - when they learn their ancestors owned slaves. But I've never had a black guest who was upset to learn about white ancestry that probably involved forced sexual relations.

What people forget is that the most radical thing about Obama is that he was the first black man in history to imagine that he could become president, who was able to make other Americans believe it as well. Other than that, he is a centrist, just like I try to be. He's been bridging divisions his whole life.

I think that is what we do by preserving and telling our stories. If you don't tell your stories, other people will tell their story about you. It's important that we nurture and protect these memories. Things change. Existence means change. So, the kind of precious memories about being black for my generation won't exist for my kids' and grandkids' generations unless we preserve them through fiction, through film, through comic books, and every other form of media we can possibly utilize to perpetuate the story of the great African-American people.

My earliest childhood memory is of my father going crazy when the Giants won the World Series in 1954. He started whoopin' and hollerin' and jumpin' up and down all around the living room. I started crying because he scared me to death.

In America there is institutional racism that we all inherit and participate in, like breathing the air in this room - and we have to become sensitive to it.

My grandfather was coloured, my father was Negro, and I am Black.