Top 60 W. Kamau Bell Quotes

When we filmed the premiere episode of ‘United Shades of America,’ it was like we were turning over a rock in the woods. The KKK was not part of the national conversation. They were really just a punchline for comedians when you needed to let the audience know something was really, really, really racist.

I keep trying to write the crowd-pleasing slavery joke and the crowd-pleasing reparations joke, but any time you mention slavery or reparations in any detail, it seems to bum lots of people out. That’s a challenge I keep putting in front of myself.

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

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.

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.

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.

Capitalism doesn’t care about sentimentality.

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.

The downside to defining everything Chinese as different than American is that all things Chinese then become exotic.

Most prisons in this country are in the middle of nowhere, which makes it much easier for us all to throw those people away. Out of sight, out of mind.

I’m happy that I know how to speak ‘Southern.’ I spent a lot of time in Alabama throughout my life. I even lived there for part of junior high and high school, so I learned the true beauty and mastery of the Southern dialect. ‘Y’all’ is one of the greatest and most useful words ever invented.

My agenda… is to learn about people.

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.

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

I feel like, as a black guy, I can’t not believe in God… I’d wake up in the morning, ‘I’m black, and there’s no God? I’m going back to sleep.’

We all need to make sure that we fully understand our country.

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

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?

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

When Arnold Schwarzenegger was pronouncing it ‘Cal-LEE-fornia,’ he was right – he just didn’t realize he was accidentally speaking Spanish.

I’ve been to the Bahamas. It’s a beautiful country with truly excellent people. When I took a cruise that docked for a couple hours in Nassau, it mostly reminded me of a giant version of my grandmother’s neighborhood in Mobile, Alabama… but with better accents.

When ‘Totally Biased’ was canceled, I thought my career was over – but apparently it wasn’t.

Chicago is a world-class city filled with amazing people with big ideas.

The big thing I learned from Chris Rock was not to be a victim of show business. Don’t let show business push you around.

No state income tax, no snow, lots of golf courses, and ready-made gated communities make Florida an irresistible place for seniors – the ones who have the income level – to retire.

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

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!

Comedy can be very deep sometimes.

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.

The day-to-day discomforts of prison life, combined with the big-picture realities of mass incarceration, do not add up to a party.

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

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

The Right doesn’t usually threaten to leave the country. When the Right feels threatened, it just declares it is going to invent a time machine to take the country back so that America can be ‘great again.’

You don’t get smarter by not learning stuff.

I want to write the reparations joke that makes people go, ‘Yay! I’m so happy!’ It’s easy to go onstage and just make fun of all the ‘isms’ instead, but we can’t all be Jeff Dunham. Although that pays very well… it pays way better to be Jeff Dunham than it ever paid to be George Carlin or Lenny Bruce.

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.

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.

The Olympics are great, but they only truly mean something when the moments that come out of them are bigger than the individual sports.

The history of Oregon is partially the history of a state that legislated not wanting black people around.

I want President Obama to want to take your guns away. I don’t trust you with your guns. I don’t trust you to fire them safely. I don’t trust you to store them safely. I don’t trust your kids not to find them. I don’t trust you not to get them stolen.

For some people, the definition of who is and who isn’t an American defies logic, historical accuracy, common sense, decency, good manners, the milk of human kindness, enjoyment in the good things in life, and love of good food.

The country should be more inclusive, not less inclusive, and over an infinite timeline, it becomes more inclusive. It doesn’t always happen at once.

Since its inception, the government has broken and coerced treaties with hundreds of Native American tribes. And this is even worse when you realize that the native peoples of this land are negotiating for land that is, by all common sense and elementary school logic, their land.

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.

As a black person in this country, I am always frustrated by the lack of attention my people’s issues get. But at least the news and politicians are talking about not talking about our issues. Native issues are basically ignored.

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.

You can be as exclusive as you want to in your house, but once you walk outside your house, you have to realize that it’s not your world anymore: it’s all of our world.

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

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.

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.

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

In most major cities, you can find stores for urban homesteaders. They sell everything you need so that you won’t need anything. Sort of a ‘Take This Civilization and Shove It’ starter kit.

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.

The alt-right is the Tea Party’s younger, cooler, meaner brother. Like if the movie ‘Back to The Future’ was just about Biff.

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.’

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

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

This is a country that was founded on racism. It was built on racism. It still continues to thrive through wealth disparity, and housing disparity is all built on the backs of racism.