[Barack Obama] will touch you on the shoulder and, you know - in that big brother or father figure kind of way. And you really do feel sort of shepherded by him.

I look at racism as one of the social demons. And, in its worst, it's violent and it's a systemic commitment to oppression.

You never want to be the whitest-sounding black guy in a room.

Back when we were Neanderthals or whatever, we evolved to think along tribal lines. Survival was based on this idea of who are we and who are the others who will come and take our resources. I think it's an animal and a human thing that we all see in terms of us vs. them, and race is a very easy way to separate who is us and who is them.

With a horror movie, you want to know where the engine of the fear is coming from. Like in comedy, you want to know what the engine that's going to make the comedy - where that's coming from.

Since we were renamed, and now it feels like 80 percent of the African-American population has the name Washington or Jefferson or some president or slave owner's name. And, I almost wonder is this, like, is this part of a way of taking back the principle of naming your - I might be going too far into this - but naming your kids something of your choice?

I've always thought of myself as an African-American comedian, African-American man, everything.