White communities - and I exempt poor white communities from this - have power over their representation. White people have the ability to define themselves, to exert their agency in a way that they get to be believed. No one believes black people. No one. Until a white person vouches for them.

We have to deal with the way that race influences our criminal justice system.

The justice system isn't meant to work for people of color in this country.

Everyone in the street where I grew up was given the same message: You can be anything; you can do anything. That wasn't extraordinary; that was ordinary for us. My folks didn't believe in black exceptionalism. There's nothing exceptional about 'You can have that, too' - except when it comes to justice. You can't have that.

Getting to where Delaware State is today was a challenge my friends - a challenge proudly met by the people of this community and the Delaware State family.

The people that have inspired me the most were dancers and choreographers. Even growing up, if I dealt with any pressure to be a certain way, I knew that as an artistic lane, dancing was the one that was a little more freed up - like, no one in my family is really doing that; I can be that person.

Every child needs to have for itself not only its loving parents and siblings and friends of its own age, but a grown-up friend.

So to answer your question, I'm not entirely sure how I ended up where I am today, in the sense that nobody in my family is an actor. It just happened by mistake.