I think sometimes in life we want to ignore the problems of society and just think about the good. I believe in positive thinking and affirmative living, I also think it's really important to remember all of our disenfranchised members of society.

It's exciting to me that people know that I'm someone who's very political.

The No. 1 reason women stay in abusive relationships - because they're not able to take care of themselves financially. It's also the No. 1 reason why women go back.

I think most people, when they think about the Black Panther Party, they think in very abstract, caricatured terms. They think about black fists in the air, but they don't think about the actual people, and the families, and the relationships.

As a young girl, my real dream was to be the woman in the shows at SeaWorld.

I wouldn't just come home from school and watch TV everyday, they had me involved in lots of local theatre. I was a very dramatic, talkative child. And that was part of my mother's creative solution - to put me in workshops and classes and children's theatre programmes.

I'd never really heard of financial abuse, although it makes so much sense when you hear it defined.