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" Certainly as a kid, I grew up with Batman, Superman, whoever - they didn't need to be black for me to relate to them. But when a character like Cyborg came along, I got excited, because he looked a little bit more like me; his experiences were a little bit more like mine. "

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" It does no good to believe in what does not exist to the point one cannot focus on what is real. That would be the greatest tragedy of any 'conspiracy.' "

John Ridley

Focus

Real

Believe

" Let's be very clear: Living 'unforgiven' is not the sole domain of blacks. It can be found in any successful person. "

" There is not a country on earth whose people don't deserve to be free and safe. "

" I remember 'Roots' growing up and the cultural impact it had on the country. Watching 'Roots' was not the cool remove of reading about slavery in a book or hearing about it in class. It became something that swept people along. "

" I got a call saying that George Lucas wanted to meet me. Of all the phone calls I've received - Oliver Stone wants to meet you; Spike Lee wants to meet you - that was the one call I never in a million years thought was going to happen. "

John Ridley

Thought

Phone

" The hypocrisy and false piety of the deniers aside, the relationships of gays have no effect on heteros. Especially all the heteros who've done such a marvelous job of debasing marriage on their own all these many years. "

" Our touchstones of slavery are 'Song of the South,' 'Gone With the Wind' and 'The Birth of a Nation.' It's hard to separate the cinematic quality from the underlying themes. I appreciate the films, but the message was repugnant. "

" Fact is, awards shows were never really about recognizing achievement. They were a publicity ploy cooked up in the late 1920s by MGM topper Louie Mayer and his newly formed Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences which was itself, back in the day, nothing but a front organization to discourage unionizing. "

" As a coping mechanism, or as a way to make a little hard count by shilling demons in the shadows, I try not to belittle the thought process of the conspiracy theorists. As a cocktail waitress in Vegas once schooled me: never get down on anybody else's hustle. "

John Ridley

Thought

Process

" I love graphic novels - I love reading them, I enjoyed writing them, I would love to go back and do them again. I hope I'm savvy enough to do them in the right way. "

John Ridley

Hope

Enough

" 'The Martin Show,' the 'Jamie Foxx show,' 'Living Single,' 'The Wayans Brothers,' 'Hanging with Mr. Cooper...' Some of these shows were good, some were typical television, but they facilitated a lot of work for blacks in front of as well as behind the camera. A lot of us in Hollywood thought it was the beginning of a real racial breakthrough. "

" Facts tend to take the punch out of a good hate rant and are therefore left best unsaid. "

" Much as banks don't care where your money's coming from, the Electoral College is all 'don't ask, don't care' when it comes to votes. "

" I don't want an underachiever working on my car's transmission. Why would I want someone regular sitting in the Oval Office? Sorry, give me somebody who has demonstrated a capacity to excel. "

John Ridley

Sorry

Sitting

" For the vast majority of those who are obese - those with a Body Mass Index over 30 - their size is their choice. They choose to take in more calories than they burn. They choose to take in high fat calories over low-fat ones. They choose to fad diet, if they choose to diet at all. "

" Why is it that the very people who have fought so hard and so long for the simple entitlement to love whom they choose to love are the very ones denied that right by those who routinely take their vows for granted? "

" Bigots are actually funny to me in the way that people who still wear parachute pants give me a chuckle. "

John Ridley

Funny

Way

" Seriously, you know - I love to write. I enjoy the process; I enjoy the different processes, because writing for film and television and graphic novels is all very different. So I've never had the feeling of, 'Oh, you have to do this one thing.' "

" People of color grow up steeped in 'white' culture. The reverse is not true. And, no, listening to hip-hop on the way to work does not count as immersion. "

" In every election cycle that I can recall, there comes a moment - or a few - where charges of elitism and claims of commonness are wielded by presidential candidates like a sword and shield: 'Vote for me 'cause I'm one of you. It's the other guy who's out of touch.' "

" If there are two kinds of people in the world - DC Comics people and Marvel Comics people - what kind am I? Well, to be honest... I'm a Wildstorm kinda guy. In the interest of full and fair disclosure, I write for Wildstorm. But even if I didn't, I'd love what they do. No, seriously, I'd love their stuff. "

" The thing about working in Hollywood is that, at some point, you really get tired of hearing how godless you are, and how if you and the rest of the heathens in Tinsel town would put more God-centric shows on TV, people wouldn't be abandoning prime time in favor of their Bible study classes. "

" Oh, happy day when the enemies of ascendancy have got to confess that people of color rock. "

" Republicans can be a funny bunch. They're against affirmative action, but they always seem to be able to find people of color to fill a slot just when they're most needed. "

" If some of us can get an Oscar for extolling that it's hard out there for a pimp, why can't others of us admonish: 'Then quit acting like a pimp'? "

" If faux liberal white guys want to support and defend Obama, by all means please do so. But I would suggest they try to limit that support to matters of policy and not perspectives on race. "

" Bad news: Complainers are rewarded for complaining. Indicative of the victim culture in which we live, people have not only come to expect something for nothing, but are then rewarded for how loudly they can ventilate their sense of having been victims of fraud. "

" With fear of stating the obvious: Freedom belongs to 'We the People,' not 'They the Politicians.' "

" It is time to celebrate the New Black Americans - those who have sealed the Deal, who aren't beholden to liberal indulgence any more than they are to the disdain of the hard Right. It is time to praise blacks who are merely undeniable in their individuality and exemplary in their levels of achievement. "

" There are any number of very hard working people in Hollywood who deserve recognition. Mostly its the artisans and crafts persons - the 'below the line' workers - whose only reward is to be pejoratively labeled 'below the line' workers. I say get them all on the next thing smoking to Vegas for an all expense paid weekend of whatever. "