It doesn't do any good to just be on the side of black people. The funnier comedic position is to be on the side of oppressed people in general.
W. Kamau BellWhat am I unbiased about? Let's see. I don't think about being unbiased, at all. With the entertainment industry, there was a point at which I felt like I had to be not only pro-myself but anti-others.
W. Kamau BellI'm a dad, and that's really important to me, and I realize now that I'm a dad that it's a major part of my identity.
W. Kamau BellWhen I was a teenager, black pride became newly popular again. Suddenly a lot of black people were wearing the fake kente cloth and red black and green and Bob Marley. That was sort of my window into finding my own identity as a black person.
W. Kamau BellYou pretty much have to be bad at it [stand-up] for several years to get good at it, so there's no avoiding embarrassing yourself.
W. Kamau BellThe idea we have of prison is a scary place that also houses crazy people. And, to me, it was like, none of these guys were scary. They may have done things that are violent or scary, but these are not people that I feel nervous being around, and it feels like to me that we're wasting these men's lives in prison.
W. Kamau Bell