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" People live in their part of the Union, and if they don't travel a lot, then there is a tendency to believe that the other parts of America couldn't possibly be as American as their part. You can see it in the way people in the South scrunch up their faces when they hear words like 'New York,' 'Chicago,' and 'challah.' "

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" 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

Feeling

Know

People

" 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. "

" I'm just another non-native whose mom told him we were part-Cherokee. "

" The jokes I was always attracted to, and that I would tell for the longest, were jokes where I cared about the subject. Whenever I wrote a joke where I didn't care, even if it was really funny, the third time I told it, it would lose steam. "

" 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

Knowledge

People

" Whenever I tell people in Berkeley, Calif., where I live, that I'm headed to the beach in Alabama, they are shocked. Most people outside of the Gulf Coast have no idea that Alabama has beaches - even though if you look at a map of Alabama, there is a part of it that looks as if it should belong to Florida. "

" If you say, 'I don't care if Muhammad Ali was a Muslim or not; he was just great,' what you're really saying is, 'I don't care about Muhammad Ali.' Same with Prince being black. "

" Throughout my career and my life, I talk a lot about racism in this country, and if you're going to talk about it, then you're going to eventually come to the chapter about the Klan. "

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

" 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. "

" One thing that people outside Chicago need to understand is that the city is not just one thing. It is one city, but it is huge and sprawling. And historically, it has been one of America's most segregated cities. "

" If we're constantly giving every one of our allies the woke test instead of inviting them to be more woke, we're doomed. You can be the most woke person of all time and be alone. "

" When I was starting out, I was just bringing a garbage bag of jokes onstage, pulling them out like, 'What about this? No? Alright.' I was just trying to be funny about anything. "

" 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. "

" 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. "

" The size of the city and the nature of how independent the neighborhoods are means that not only do people who live outside Chicago not know what is going on there, Chicagoans often don't know what is going on there. "

" When I stand up in front of groups of people who agree with me, I know I have to really step my game up because I can't just sort of meet them where they're at; I have to take them somewhere else. They want you to challenge them and have good ideas. "

W. Kamau Bell

Step

Ideas

" Usually, the news out of Florida makes me feel like being black in Florida can be a terminal condition. "

W. Kamau Bell

Feel

" People in Hollywood can condescend to the way a lot of other people are living. "

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

W. Kamau Bell

Hope

One Day

" Donald Trump giving a speech on Islam is like me giving a speech titled, 'The Best Haircuts to Have If You Really Want to Succeed in Corporate America.' I could do it. But I'd mostly be making it up as I went along. "

W. Kamau Bell

Giving

Best

" The alt-right is working hard to cloak its desire to create chaos in the streets as free speech. They say they want to air their views, but it's about provoking violent reactions. We all can easily see that this is not about free speech. "

" 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. "

" 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.' "

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

" We should always be having a conversation about if we could make this country more inclusive and what we can do to do that. "

" I just want to make TV that I want to see. "

W. Kamau Bell

See

Make

" I've always been a fan of these travel shows and documentary series. "

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

" 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. "

W. Kamau Bell

Right

Run