In my world, a woman was the most powerful thing that I knew. Still is. A woman made the money in my house; a woman made my food. A woman beat my ass when I wasn't a good kid. Women were behind a lot of what spurred South Africa toward democracy.

It was just how my parents treated me. It was the world they decided to show me. I was really sheltered. My grandmother kept me locked in the house when I was staying, you know, with the family in Soweto. And every household, for instance, had to have a registry of everyone who lived in that house.

Even now in America, you know, when people say they hate immigrants, they're not referring to a Canadian immigrant. You know, they're not referring to somebody who has an accent who's slightly different to theirs.

When Donald Trump won the election because when I came into the show, I said, I think this guy can win. This was when he first came down that escalator. He gave his first speech.

Smaller incidents in my life made me realize that language, even more than color, defines who you are to people.

I was lucky to come along for the ride. [My mother] really is an amazing woman. And the world we lived in in South Africa at the time was a very matriarchal society because so many black men had been removed from the home.

Twitter is a place where there is extreme vitriol at all times.