Quotes from W. Kamau Bell

When we let cops talk about themselves as a separate community, then we are letting cops wall themselves off from the rest of us. We don't generally do that with any other jobs. We don't talk about the barista community or the Wal-Mart greeter community.

Women don't get the benefits of America the way men do.

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

When things aren't going well for black people, they blame the government. When things aren't going well for white people, they can't blame the government because the government is supposed to be for them. So they blame black people.

Most people have the ability to turn their empathy engine back on, but there's such a seductive burn to not being empathetic.

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

I never wanted to be in the late-night talk show wars, and I think somehow with 'Totally Biased,' I got caught up in all that. Suddenly, there are articles about how we finally have a black voice in late-night.

Capitalism doesn't care about sentimentality.

That's the nature of my [stand-up] act: black man with a white baby.

Shouldn't one of the goals of prison be getting as many of the inmates as possible back out into the world to be responsible citizens? Aren't we just wasting generations of human potential by keeping over two million people behind bars?

I was born in the Bay Area because my dad was a semi-professional photographer and poet who was really into John Coltrane. He's had many lives. My dad's a capitalist to his bone, but he's also a human to his bone.

As a comedian, you see all parts of the country because you play there.

I am a comedian: that means I laugh at things other people don't laugh at and also annoys my wife sometimes.

Cops should not be separate from the black community or any community. Their salaries are paid for by the communities they police. They should be working for the communities they police. But as we saw in Ferguson, Missouri, they are not always doing that.

What has happened is we've allowed the people who run policies in this country to sort of make us pick Left and the Right as if those are the only two choices.

As much as some people like to put down 'political correctness,' if it wasn't for political correctness, I wouldn't be free right now.

If we go the direction that many of the leaders of this country want and close the borders and discourage new immigrants, then we are ruining the possibility of new ideas and new experiences.

As a black man, I actually had naturally sort of comedic curiosity about the Klan.

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!

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.

Growing up in the Midwest, Boston, and Alabama, I didn't know any Puerto Ricans... at least, I didn't know if I knew any Puerto Ricans. The only Puerto Rican that I had ever even heard of was Juan Epstein, one of the students from the classic 1970s sitcom 'Welcome Back, Kotter.'

Over the years, I'd hear Jon Stewart disavow being a journalist and say, 'No, I'm a comedian.' I'd be like, 'Stop pretending. You know you're a journalist.'

Knowing that more people associate Chicago with street violence than generosity is difficult for me because, despite all my proclamations of being from the Bay Area, I have spent much of my life in Chicago. So I have a deep love and a pretty good understanding of the city.

In the deep corner of my heart, I'm a Chicagoan, but it's been covered over by 20 years of living in the Bay Area.