Top 44 Salim Akil Quotes

I never like to do storytelling where everything is just copacetic right after that episode.

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.

It’s one thing to be a comic book fan, but when you have to create a character and put him in a suit and keep the story grounded in reality, the challenge sometimes is making sure he actually uses his powers.

A lot of African Americans, especially men, deal with this as a part of life. I’ve been pulled over by the police in my life, and I think I’ve only gotten a ticket once. It’s just a part of everyday life, and it doesn’t matter if you’re in the car with your children or by yourself.

It’s less about Trump and more about the people… If the American people are willing to elect someone like that president, then that’s more of a problem.

Michael Schultz’s ‘Cooley High’ is a classic. Oftentimes, we don’t get to see films about coming of age, especially for young African Americans.

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

If anyone sees anything in ‘Black Lightning’ that seems foreign to them, then they haven’t been paying attention. This is a uniquely American experience.

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.

I grew up around people with a bunch of serious problems.

I remember, as a kid, wearing the Batman costume for Halloween and feeling empowered by that as a kid.

I’ve worked in a mortuary and seen the consequences of what guns and knives do to people.

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

If there’s a responsibility, it’s just to be honest in what I’ve experienced and to put it in my work.

If I’m walking down the street or taking my kids trick-or-treating, and I see some young girls or boys who are dressed up like Black Lightning, that, to me, would be success.

I have two little black boys. And a film like ‘Do the Right Thing’ can help illuminate the times for them with great storytelling.

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.

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

It’s a wonderful thing to see ‘Wonder Woman’ directed by a woman. That did have an affect on the character, the , and the nuances of that film. That’s the same thing my wife, Mara Brock Akil, and I are doing taking on ‘Black Lightning.’

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.

We don’t have a lot of black superheroes.

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.

No matter how happy and peaceful you can be at a certain time, you always have this – at least, I do – paranoia or catastrophic thought that even now that I have all this peace and quiet, what’s the next challenge? What’s coming next? On a very human level, I think most people can identify with that.

In popular culture, there is this notion that African-American men and women can’t get together, and we’re having these issues. I think it’s an American problem because I know a lot of white women and men who are having just as many issues trying to find ‘that person’ as anyone.

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.

I don’t walk around all the time thinking of myself as African American, but oftentimes in Hollywood, you are reminded of that in ways that can make you question your viability.

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.

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

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.

If I see one kid dressed up like Thunder or Lightning or Black Lightning, I’ll feel like I influenced the culture in a very positive way. That’s the endgame for me. If this happens, my mission will be complete.

My mother, Betty, was an entertainer – she opened up for James Brown, Ike and Tina Turner – and I had an uncle who would work as a chef in a restaurant, 6-foot-3 or 6-foot-4. I was young, so he could have been shorter, but in my mind, that’s how tall he was.

My wife asked me to marry her. But we did not jump the broom.

I never saw a true representation – an iconic hero – for myself. It just got boring, reading about all these really powerful and heroic white guys.

I feel like I have a responsibility to be true to who I am as an artist, first and foremost.

I had been pulled over quite a bit by police officers, especially in Santa Monica and Culver City.

I always feel like, whatever job I direct, whether it be a movie or whole season of ‘The Game,’ I just fall in love with it.

Black Lightning, Jefferson Pierce, is the American dream.

I think that people in America, unfortunately or fortunately, are just discovering different aspects of the humanity of African-American people. And so I think with that discovery comes, ‘Oh, you could be a superhero; you could be president or whatever it is that we thought you couldn’t be.’

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.

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

You can’t protect your children from life.

Every time I get an opportunity to do what I love to do, it’s huge. It never gets old.

I always approach storytelling with the idea that the audience will get it. They understand almost better than we do, because they get to watch it from an entirely different perspective with new eyes.