W. Kamau Bell
W. Kamau Bell

I can't imagine what it must be like to be one of the indigenous people of the United States of America. I can't imagine watching the news every day - as people debate whose country this is and who should be in charge of it and how to make it great again - and hardly ever see your people brought into the discussion.

W. Kamau Bell
W. Kamau Bell

America loses so much of what defines it if you subtract the Chinese influence. I know this because I spent 12 years living in one of America's most popular tourist destinations: San Francisco. And it would not be one of America's top tourist destinations without Chinatown.

W. Kamau Bell
W. Kamau Bell

We really suffer from a hot-take disease, wanting to be the first one who has the hottest take.

W. Kamau Bell
W. Kamau Bell

I like living in Berkeley, but I know Berkeley's not the world.

W. Kamau Bell
W. Kamau Bell

If you're on TV regularly, doing a thing regularly, whether you're Anthony Anderson on 'Black-ish' or Don Lemon, an hour a night, you have to turn into, 'What's the delivery system through which I can deliver information?' I don't mean they are being fake or that they are doing something that's disingenuous.

W. Kamau Bell
W. Kamau Bell

I grew up in a household where we talked about race all the time, and that's sort of in me. So if I become the Anthony Bourdain of race and culture, then great!

W. Kamau Bell
W. Kamau Bell

To be off the grid is to be disconnected from most of America's infrastructure without having to cross any border.

W. Kamau Bell
W. Kamau Bell

America, the self-described greatest nation on Earth, has the highest incarceration rate on the planet.

W. Kamau Bell
W. Kamau Bell

In communities of color, such as Ferguson, it often feels like the police are protecting the white community from us instead of protecting our communities from the criminal element.

W. Kamau Bell
W. Kamau Bell

That's how to make a stand-up comedian: You take a person who is uncomfortable and try to squirrel their way out of it through humor.

W. Kamau Bell
W. Kamau Bell

You can be as exclusive as you want to in your house, but once you walk outside your house, you have to realize that it's not your world anymore: it's all of our world.

W. Kamau Bell
W. Kamau Bell

No comedian grows up thinking, 'I hope one day to have a show on CNN.'

W. Kamau Bell
W. Kamau Bell

If I have any talent, I think I have an ability to listen to people and also just meet them on their level.

W. Kamau Bell
W. Kamau Bell

I have an upfront, sort of in-the-trenches knowledge of white people's trying to avoid their whiteness and replace it with something else. When I met my wife, we went through the whole race-slash-ethnicity conversation, and she told me she was Italian. Later on, I find out she's a quarter Italian, at best.

W. Kamau Bell
W. Kamau Bell

No state income tax, no snow, lots of golf courses, and ready-made gated communities make Florida an irresistible place for seniors - the ones who have the income level - to retire.

W. Kamau Bell
W. Kamau Bell

If I say 'political comedian,' then people think you're talking about you, the Senate and Congress, and what's going on in Washington D.C. If I say 'comedian,' people automatically assume that you're a comedian who talks about how his wife won't listen to him and that dummy down at the mechanic who wouldn't fix his car.

W. Kamau Bell
W. Kamau Bell

This is a country that was founded on racism. It was built on racism. It still continues to thrive through wealth disparity, and housing disparity is all built on the backs of racism.

W. Kamau Bell
W. Kamau Bell

Stand-up comedians know how to walk into a room, even if you're not performing, just read the temperature of a room, and can easily sort of tell what's going on or what people are sort of feeling in the room, and it allows you to sort of approach people.

W. Kamau Bell
W. Kamau Bell

The country should be more inclusive, not less inclusive, and over an infinite timeline, it becomes more inclusive. It doesn't always happen at once.

W. Kamau Bell
W. Kamau Bell

I've turned the annoying questions that white people ask into a career, so I understand that's where I live.