For black women our sense of ourselves is not always consistent with the way other people see us.

My parents pressed upon me that "In this world, you are a black woman," so I was political about my hair and would not straighten it.

My mother's white, and she didn't know how to do my hair, so I had something that I always call white-mama hair.

There came a point when I wanted to do television, and I didn't think the Afro was going to play, so I made a very difficult choice - to straighten my hair.

Often hair is the way we are differentiated in this culture. To me the decision to straighten your hair is deeply political.

I've done lots of pieces on self-esteem and hair. There's a desire to conform, but if the encouragement to be yourself is there from loved ones, you'll find that later, that true self will come out.

The powerful are like a compressor, they will grind into paste everything on their way

I like to eat yogurt in the morning. It's easy and quick and available anywhere.

I came out to my parents when I was a junior in college. And it was pretty fine. They were more concerned with why I wasn't dating anyone. But now I'm 36, and I still don't date anyone.

Anyone who proposes to do good must not expect people to roll stones out of his way, but must accept his lot calmly if they even roll a few more upon it.

I'm the first one in line to go watch "Spider-Man," but there's definitely something in me that makes me want to go to a movie and see something that makes me feel good about life.

Today, much of journalism and politics are in a kind of collusion to oversimplify and personalize issues. No room for ambivalence. Plenty of room for the personal attack.

You don't get out of life what you want. You get out of life who you are.

When I read a script, I have to see the funny, and if I can see it's funny, it helps me to be able to transmit that.

When all think alike, then no one is thinking

Mine honour is my life; both grow in one; Take honour from me, and my life is done.