Quotes from Salim Akil

If you bury me in a grave, don't ever come visit - because you won't find me there. You'll find me in the books that I've read, the music I've listened to, and the art I've created.

Most guys have to go through this: When do you separate yourself from your friends? Some of them are going to go left, some of them are going to go right, some are going to go straight. And you have to go on your path.

There are so many slices to the African-American experience. I mean, I have the whole ghetto pedigree. My mom was in jail, I didn't have any money, and I didn't go to a fancy college. But that's not the type of story I want to tell or feel the need to tell on film.

When you're given a certain amount of power - like, you're a writer and an employed writer, and you put pen to paper, and people are going to read what you write - that's power.

Come election time, black and white politicians put on their costumes of compassion and care, shake black hands, kiss black babies, sing 'We Shall Overcome' in black , and pray that we will ignore the reality of everyday suffering and the damage that is being done to our future in exchange for our votes.

We all want to make money and have a good life. But if your passion is writing, and you want to write a novel, I don't think you should sit in your home and wait for someone to give you the opportunity. You write it.

To me, Jefferson Pierce represented every side of me. I knew that I would be able to flesh him out.

Jefferson Pierce is the epitome of what black men are: He loves his wife, his children, and the community.

If the only thing that was interesting about Jefferson Pierce is that he is African-American, I don't think we'd have much of a show.

Black Lightning, Jefferson Pierce, is the American dream.

I think my big break was getting out of Richmond, California, alive.

We don't have a lot of black superheroes.

I thought I was an actor until they pointed the camera at me.

I don't think I'll ever do a show with violence where there's no consequences, 'cause I know the consequences.

America has a strange relationship with its racial memory. Death has always been a constant companion of black people.

As an artist, I write and I do what I know and what creatively comes out of me, and I think that other artists should do the same thing.

What we tend to do in our shows, especially with 'Love Is_,' is to show the humanity of characters so that people can see themselves, one, and so that other cultures can see that we have more in common than we have not in common.

I tell my children, some people can be more talented than you. Some people can be faster, stronger, but there is never a reason for anyone to outwork you.

I was determined to make a movie - about families and a love story - that black women would be proud to see and which would depict them as being smart, loving, sensitive, sexy, and funny.

It doesn't make sense to constantly talk about the lack of diversity in Hollywood. We all know it's there. My wife and I just want to change that conversation with our work.

In this larger conversation about diversity, we want to really show that we're all the same. We are all experiencing the same stories.

I know and understand the result of extreme violence in my own life, in my friends' lives, and so I know what violence really is.

Like anyone else in television, I like to explore my life experience. And I don't think African-American artists see doing shows or art about African-Americans as something 'less than.' I think maybe the industry sometimes does. We don't get as much attention, we don't get critical acclaim and so on.

There are so many families who do not come up in a traditional household. African Americans, Latins, and, I'm sure, whites as well, but there are a lot of men missing in African American communities and in Latin communities.