Latest / The Breakfast Club / Bill Duke Interview
Transcript
- 0:01Speaker 1: Real, real celebrity joined the Breakfast Morning. Everybody is DJ
- 0:08Speaker 1: Envy angela Ye, Charlomagne the God. We all the Breakfast
- 0:11Speaker 1: Club special guests in the building. Mister Bill Duke, you know,
- 0:16Speaker 1: you know how many times do you hear that? Every day?
- 0:20Speaker 1: Ten times a day. I actually happened to say that
- 0:25Speaker 1: to Envy previously this morning, this morning. He didn't lie
- 0:28Speaker 1: about something. Got to say it for us one time. Okay,
- 0:31Speaker 1: you said you taste had the bottle of beer at
- 0:36Speaker 1: what time? Now? You know you read that in that
- 0:44Speaker 1: script years ago in Minute to Society. Did you know
- 0:46Speaker 1: it was gonna be as iconic? You never never, never ever?
- 0:50Speaker 1: He was brothers, great, great, great directors, man, and they
- 0:52Speaker 1: kind of give you the freedom to as an actor,
- 0:56Speaker 1: to do it. So you come up with the feeling,
- 0:58Speaker 1: You come up with what you feel based in the
- 0:59Speaker 1: words they've written. And you still look the same now
- 1:02Speaker 1: as you do then. Oh, man, I wish my knees
- 1:04Speaker 1: felt that way. You always got a very present man.
- 1:10Speaker 1: I know, I don't know. I guess you know, big
- 1:11Speaker 1: black man, you know what I mean? In America? You
- 1:13Speaker 1: always look I guess two, no, look good. I don't
- 1:20Speaker 1: know what supposed to look like. But you look great, right,
- 1:26Speaker 1: don't crack when you did minutes you was in your forties,
- 1:31Speaker 1: late thirties. I think late thirties, late forties. Yeah, wow,
- 1:34Speaker 1: many moons ago. Man, So what do you do? Do
- 1:36Speaker 1: you work out? Do you drinkie green juice? Secret? Um?
- 1:40Speaker 1: I was five days week. I'm vegan. Um. I work
- 1:45Speaker 1: out three times a week with a trainer, and I
- 1:47Speaker 1: go to beakrom yoga. Yea oh man, it's rough, but
- 1:54Speaker 1: I love it. But I meditate every day, Chancellor meditation.
- 1:56Speaker 1: I'm doing that since, oh, in the seventies. Man, So
- 2:00Speaker 1: meditation really saves my life every day. Really, when you
- 2:02Speaker 1: say five days of weeks, I mean two days a week.
- 2:04Speaker 1: You eat meat if you want to a fish. I
- 2:08Speaker 1: eat a little fish or chicken because strength wise, I
- 2:12Speaker 1: want to some of the proteins that get on the vegetables.
- 2:15Speaker 1: Was good, but sometimes ate some fish. I feel stronger.
- 2:19Speaker 1: Got you all right? Well, let's talk about these documentary
- 2:21Speaker 1: Dark Girls and Light Girls. I was in the Light
- 2:23Speaker 1: Girls documentary that you did. You did a very good job,
- 2:25Speaker 1: by the way, and that actually was all over the place.
- 2:28Speaker 1: A lot of things like Amber Rose her her part
- 2:30Speaker 1: of that movie. That documentary was everywhere. When she said
- 2:33Speaker 1: that her family had issues with her being with Whiz
- 2:36Speaker 1: Khalifa because he's black, and you know, they had a
- 2:39Speaker 1: problem with that son show for a wedding, that's yeah,
- 2:43Speaker 1: that's absolutely And I was saying the same thing about
- 2:45Speaker 1: in my family. You know, I'm half Chinese and half Flack,
- 2:48Speaker 1: and that was an issue for the Chinese side of
- 2:49Speaker 1: my family too, you know, to not they didn't come
- 2:52Speaker 1: to my parents' wedding for the same reason. But um,
- 2:55Speaker 1: there was a lot of flack I got when I
- 2:57Speaker 1: posted on Instagram, okay, make sure you check out you know,
- 3:00Speaker 1: La Girl's documentaries coming on tomorrow night. We were promoting
- 3:03Speaker 1: it and people got into arguments on my Instagram over that,
- 3:06Speaker 1: like why would you make such a divisive documentary? Why
- 3:09Speaker 1: people were saying things like this because they couldn't put
- 3:12Speaker 1: it into perspective. There was a Dark Girl's documentary that
- 3:14Speaker 1: came out first, and let's talk about why you felt
- 3:16Speaker 1: they need to do that one. Well, because pain has
- 3:19Speaker 1: no color. On the assumption is because your dark skin
- 3:22Speaker 1: you have pain, but light skin people don't have no pain.
- 3:25Speaker 1: The truth of the matter is is that our internal
- 3:28Speaker 1: racism is still alive, and we are still putting each
- 3:33Speaker 1: other down and making jokes about each other because of
- 3:35Speaker 1: the color of our skin. And with women particularly it's
- 3:38Speaker 1: it's difficult because the beauty business says, if you don't
- 3:41Speaker 1: look a certain way, God made a mistake, and so
- 3:44Speaker 1: we're going to give you cosmetics and stuff and and
- 3:48Speaker 1: give you lengthen your hair with extensions and blah blah blah.
- 3:52Speaker 1: Then we have to think with skin bleach, which is
- 3:55Speaker 1: globally a fifty billion dollar business, right, really, this is globally, man.
- 4:00Speaker 1: I wasn't gone to Africa man last year, man, and
- 4:02Speaker 1: on a number one polics here was skin bleached. When
- 4:06Speaker 1: I say, I mean liaching the whole body. I need
- 4:08Speaker 1: to get in on that sense everybody think I'm doing now.
- 4:10Speaker 1: Everybody thinks that Charlotte because everyone says that he's bleaching
- 4:14Speaker 1: his skin because he said he had some skin discoloration.
- 4:18Speaker 1: You can see it. He went to he went to
- 4:19Speaker 1: go see a germatologist. And now when people see him,
- 4:22Speaker 1: he visibly looks lighter in pictures and all the time,
- 4:25Speaker 1: like Charletagne's bleaching his skin. He hates himself, you know.
- 4:28Speaker 1: So on and so forth. Let me ask you a question.
- 4:31Speaker 1: You know, what do you do when somebody or how
- 4:33Speaker 1: do you handle when somebody makes fun of your skin color?
- 4:35Speaker 1: Because he's visibly babe goes on every day, every day,
- 4:44Speaker 1: every day waffle color. Oh my god, what else do
- 4:48Speaker 1: you call me? I call you princess boy. And then
- 4:50Speaker 1: you never called me that you ever worked with a
- 4:52Speaker 1: light skin guy. Of course you have right, everybody many
- 4:57Speaker 1: with everybody. Man, they could be a little difficult. Are
- 5:00Speaker 1: you saying that you have evidence of that? Yes, this
- 5:02Speaker 1: guy now trying to under the impression that because Envy
- 5:06Speaker 1: is light skin, he's more sensitive, more emotional, more emotional
- 5:10Speaker 1: than the average person. He does. I don't know if
- 5:13Speaker 1: it's because of the color of his thing. He is
- 5:15Speaker 1: the most sensitive one in the room, but I don't
- 5:17Speaker 1: actually say that that's why. And then Envy and return
- 5:21Speaker 1: cost made a big black bully and I ain't even big,
- 5:24Speaker 1: but because I'm dog skin, I gotta be big and
- 5:27Speaker 1: black and a bully. So I'm so glad you're here
- 5:29Speaker 1: to shed some light on these issues that we have
- 5:31Speaker 1: every day in the studio. Well, uh, no, pun intendive,
- 5:34Speaker 1: but I'd like to shed some light on the issue
- 5:40Speaker 1: because you haven't done light skin boy versus dogskin Boy.
- 5:43Speaker 1: I think it's more you two are inspiring me to
- 5:46Speaker 1: make that movie right now. Remember, and y'all, y'all should
- 5:49Speaker 1: be starring at it, you know what I'm saying. But no,
- 5:52Speaker 1: I think it's an issue internally, and I know we're
- 5:55Speaker 1: joking about it. But then the thing is is that
- 5:57Speaker 1: a lot of children are suffering from this, you know,
- 5:59Speaker 1: on the plague. You know, they're being bullied either their
- 6:02Speaker 1: their their their the kinky hair you look like a
- 6:05Speaker 1: tar baby, uh, and little girls being calling tar babies,
- 6:18Speaker 1: and light skinned girls are being taken into bathrooms held
- 6:22Speaker 1: down and theirs being put in their hair and they're
- 6:24Speaker 1: pulling the hair out by the roots slice of course,
- 6:28Speaker 1: the neckan's face sliced and ear rings pulled through their
- 6:31Speaker 1: It looks that people think they think they're too cute.
- 6:34Speaker 1: It's madness, and I think if we could. My belief
- 6:37Speaker 1: is we can cure our internal rifts that no one
- 6:42Speaker 1: can touch us from the outside. But until we learn
- 6:44Speaker 1: to heal that. You know, here's the ironic thing. Well,
- 6:47Speaker 1: light skinned and dark skinned women are bickering about skin color.
- 6:51Speaker 1: White females are going to tanning s allonspice twice twice
- 6:55Speaker 1: a week, crinkling their hair, getting butt lips, lifts and injections.
- 7:00Speaker 1: Don't you find out a little a little ironic. Yeah,
- 7:04Speaker 1: it's like they planted the seed to make us think
- 7:06Speaker 1: that what we naturally have is bad. But that's there,
- 7:09Speaker 1: you go. We all give with each other. Like we
- 7:12Speaker 1: talk about my wife. My wife is light skin. She
- 7:14Speaker 1: got cut in the face and by a dog skinned girl,
- 7:18Speaker 1: and they called her casper, and they called her white goals.
- 7:20Speaker 1: And you know, it's a problem with her own community.
- 7:23Speaker 1: You know, at the end of the day, we're all black,
- 7:25Speaker 1: you know what I mean, There's only one race man,
- 7:28Speaker 1: the human race, you know, and we all why are
- 7:29Speaker 1: you laughing for? You're just crazy man, right, I'm telling
- 7:40Speaker 1: you it's very difficult every day. But m yeah, no,
- 7:44Speaker 1: that's why I was saying. And he did have an issue.
- 7:45Speaker 1: You know, his wife did get her face cut because
- 7:48Speaker 1: of the color of her skin, basically, and people do
- 7:50Speaker 1: automatically assume, Oh, she thinks she's cute, she thinks she's better.
- 7:53Speaker 1: Where did these stereotypes come from? No? I mean I
- 7:55Speaker 1: even think of a movie like New Jack City when
- 7:57Speaker 1: Nino who was dog skin stabbed Christopher Williams character in
- 8:00Speaker 1: the Hand. I never liked you anywhere. You pretty mother
- 8:02Speaker 1: who said lightskin people were pretty. All light skin girls
- 8:05Speaker 1: ain't pretty. And people would say things like, oh, you
- 8:07Speaker 1: know he wasn't light skin, she wouldn't be cute. People
- 8:09Speaker 1: say stuff like, hey, light skin, peak got good here. Yeah,
- 8:12Speaker 1: well it goes back to neo colonialism. You know. Once
- 8:15Speaker 1: we were slaves and the ruler was white. Uh, and um,
- 8:21Speaker 1: everybody wants to be like the person in power. And
- 8:23Speaker 1: so the lighter skin slaves right in the house because
- 8:26Speaker 1: they the master had sex with the female slaves. They
- 8:30Speaker 1: were ladder and he took better care of them than
- 8:32Speaker 1: he do. You know, do you know that the brown
- 8:35Speaker 1: paper bag test? Here's what's crazy, man. Somebody just did
- 8:38Speaker 1: that this morning with Tyrese. You know, you know you
- 8:41Speaker 1: know that. Uh, until the forties and fifties on the church,
- 8:46Speaker 1: certain churches, there was a brown paper bag nailed to
- 8:49Speaker 1: the church door. Wow, if your skin was darker than
- 8:53Speaker 1: the brown paper bag, couldn't go to church. Wow, that
- 8:57Speaker 1: wouldn't be allowed. The church is that deep even you'd
- 8:59Speaker 1: be that is absolutely that's crazy. But that's that's to
- 9:03Speaker 1: the alley that we've faced and today it's still going
- 9:06Speaker 1: on when I travel um one of them. It's not funny,
- 9:09Speaker 1: but one of the biggest consumers of skin bleach is
- 9:12Speaker 1: Indian and Indian men. And because if your skin is
- 9:16Speaker 1: lighter in the Indian culture means you're working in the
- 9:19Speaker 1: office because you haven't got to the sun. If it's dark,
- 9:21Speaker 1: it means you're work in the field. So Indian women
- 9:23Speaker 1: want lighter men because it means they have better jobs
- 9:26Speaker 1: for the house. Negro field negrontality is even an Indian
- 9:29Speaker 1: go Yeah, and then are bleaching the whole facing and
- 9:31Speaker 1: the whole bodies. Wow, that's toxic. Do I look like
- 9:34Speaker 1: I'm bleaching? No? After he does, but I didn't know him.
- 9:41Speaker 1: I think he was, but he had to be because
- 9:43Speaker 1: its entire bodies. This tam caused his face. Duh, thank
- 9:46Speaker 1: you mister Duke for shedding somebody. Yeah, he had this
- 9:50Speaker 1: coloration on it around his eyes looked like a rack
- 9:52Speaker 1: home when it was how do you have it was
- 9:56Speaker 1: so dark? Now he's talk about the dark stuck goes Iraq.
- 10:00Speaker 1: Does this happen every day? Somebody? Absolutely? It's healing up
- 10:07Speaker 1: in here. You know what I mean. I want to
- 10:09Speaker 1: ask you about this article that a TV editor road
- 10:11Speaker 1: on deadline dot com. She said that ethnic diversity. She
- 10:14Speaker 1: said that the pendulum may be swinging too far and
- 10:17Speaker 1: that too many minorities and ethnic people are getting these
- 10:21Speaker 1: roles and white people can't get roles now because they're
- 10:23Speaker 1: purposely making these roles for ethnic people. Well, we're still
- 10:26Speaker 1: looking for forty acres in the mule. Maybe this is
- 10:28Speaker 1: it coming you know what I mean. Did you get
- 10:30Speaker 1: your forty acres? You get your Maybe it's my forty
- 10:34Speaker 1: acres of the mule coming out. I mean, it's like,
- 10:35Speaker 1: the fact of the matter is, man, is that percentage
- 10:39Speaker 1: wise if you look at the number of television shows
- 10:42Speaker 1: and three or four of them are black and very successful,
- 10:44Speaker 1: I'm not in the same thing they're not. But in
- 10:47Speaker 1: ratio to what's on the air and the number of
- 10:49Speaker 1: films that are made yearly, there's no comparison. I mean
- 10:53Speaker 1: there's no I don't know what they're talking about, but
- 10:55Speaker 1: there's no comparison. So we shouldn't even be jumping for
- 10:57Speaker 1: joy right now. Uh. If for the next ten years
- 11:01Speaker 1: you would see an increase in employment, we see images
- 11:05Speaker 1: that reflect our humanity and not just our ethnicity. We
- 11:09Speaker 1: see more directors producers owning content. We see us getting
- 11:13Speaker 1: into the gaming market, which we're not yet. That is
- 11:16Speaker 1: like grand Theft Auto made two points in two point
- 11:20Speaker 1: two big end dollars in three days, and we're not
- 11:23Speaker 1: in the gaming business. I mean, we should be celebrating
- 11:27Speaker 1: the fact that we're more exposed, but we're not in
- 11:30Speaker 1: a film and television business anymore. We're in the media business.
- 11:33Speaker 1: And until we get into that business, I say, the
- 11:36Speaker 1: kids don't want to be Steven Spielberg, try to be
- 11:40Speaker 1: Steve Jobs because you know the thing is, and they'll
- 11:43Speaker 1: say it this way. You know, we're playing checks in
- 11:46Speaker 1: a chess game. Make any sense? Yes, do you feel
- 11:50Speaker 1: like you would discriminated against because are you kidding me?
- 11:54Speaker 1: Big black ball, big black ballheaded? Uh? You know me
- 12:00Speaker 1: detective And for the work. Yeah, but I got some
- 12:05Speaker 1: good roles too in terms of some of the shows,
- 12:08Speaker 1: and my humanity was shown more. But in those days, um,
- 12:12Speaker 1: there weren't many of us who were dark skinned black
- 12:15Speaker 1: men who were allowed to be in leading roles, etcetera.
- 12:18Speaker 1: So you know when you scared me to when you
- 12:20Speaker 1: was in the predator and he was putting that stuff
- 12:23Speaker 1: around your eyes and it was like you were preparing
- 12:25Speaker 1: to die. And I like, boy, the predator, the bad man.
- 12:27Speaker 1: If he killed this one, he got me. So I'm
- 12:31Speaker 1: still trying to get him too. Man, he's evasive. He's evasive.
- 12:35Speaker 1: Put it that way. Now you're doing the Mahalia Jackson movie,
- 12:39Speaker 1: executive producing that. Well, that's the rumor. Um. The producers
- 12:43Speaker 1: are talking to me right now. They're still raising the funds,
- 12:45Speaker 1: et cetera. But one thing that is happening. I'm getting
- 12:48Speaker 1: ready to go in a couple of weeks to Chicago,
- 12:51Speaker 1: and we're working on a television series, uh called the Blexicansslexicans, Yes,
- 13:00Speaker 1: black Mexicans. What it happened. There's a black family in
- 13:02Speaker 1: a Mexican family, um, and the young black man reaches
- 13:07Speaker 1: out to a Mexican girl. They get married and they
- 13:09Speaker 1: have a young girl and she's a Blexican. But the
- 13:13Speaker 1: black father hates Mexicans and the Mexican father hates black people.
- 13:17Speaker 1: And so it's about it's a comedy dramedy type thing,
- 13:20Speaker 1: and we'll start filming it around three weeks and so days.
- 13:23Speaker 1: Some black people in a Mexican make some pretty babies.
- 13:25Speaker 1: I used to date this girl named Kanna Modena. She
- 13:27Speaker 1: was a Mexican black. Murder was so fun and she
- 13:31Speaker 1: used to give these great hand jobs. Okay, that's a
- 13:33Speaker 1: lot of information and a lot of it. That's a
- 13:36Speaker 1: lot of I just thought about it. When you say
- 13:40Speaker 1: now I have a question, I mean the hand job part.
- 13:41Speaker 1: I mean up util that point everything was good for
- 13:46Speaker 1: a full name and everything I used to call it moa.
- 13:51Speaker 1: That doesn't sound now, Bill, did I have a question
- 13:54Speaker 1: for you? Somebody wrote this into me right from my
- 13:56Speaker 1: asking just yesterday, and I want to see how would
- 13:59Speaker 1: you say one should respond to this? Is this offensive? Now,
- 14:02Speaker 1: she's a black girl and she was out in Orlando
- 14:05Speaker 1: and her girlfriend starts talking to um a guy and
- 14:09Speaker 1: he had two white friends, and one of the white
- 14:11Speaker 1: guys gave her a kiss on the cheek and called
- 14:13Speaker 1: her his jungle princess. Now, she said, I'm open to
- 14:16Speaker 1: all races. I've never dated a white guy because of
- 14:18Speaker 1: the ignorant ways they tried to hit on me, she said.
- 14:21Speaker 1: Normally they call her things like chocolate queen or mocha latte.
- 14:24Speaker 1: He took it too far, and I had to put
- 14:25Speaker 1: him in his place. I realized after he might not
- 14:28Speaker 1: have meant it in a rude way, But why do
- 14:29Speaker 1: white guys think it's appropriate to hit on a black
- 14:31Speaker 1: girl like that? She should have called him my cracker boo?
- 14:39Speaker 1: How about that? Thank you? Crackaboo? Calling me jungle princess? Crackaboo?
- 14:46Speaker 1: How about that? And you say crackabay, kackabay. Wouldn't that
- 14:51Speaker 1: work out a little bit? But then so I'm reading
- 14:53Speaker 1: my responses to this question, and some people are saying
- 14:56Speaker 1: things like, well, you know, he probably might have just
- 14:59Speaker 1: not known. Maybe he wasn't trying. How do you tolerate
- 15:02Speaker 1: that kind of ignorance? I mean, my jungle what jungle princess? Look? Man,
- 15:08Speaker 1: you know that kind of ignorance. I don't know how
- 15:09Speaker 1: she can even tolerate it as Oh, he didn't mean that,
- 15:12Speaker 1: Yes he did, he don't. What does he call what
- 15:15Speaker 1: does he call his white girlfriend? Um? What? Why? Uh? What? Crackabay?
- 15:23Speaker 1: I'm just something saying it's just like probably Nubian white queen.
- 15:26Speaker 1: That's what they say. Yeah, sure, uh, I think it's
- 15:32Speaker 1: just insulting and ignorant. That's you know, stupid. Do you
- 15:36Speaker 1: know you got to go. You know, I just want
- 15:38Speaker 1: to ask one more questions. Do you think that others?
- 15:40Speaker 1: Because I always say I don't want to see any
- 15:42Speaker 1: more slave movies because I want to see other stories
- 15:44Speaker 1: told about the black American experience, Like we've had successful
- 15:48Speaker 1: stories like why does it always have to be about
- 15:49Speaker 1: slavery or the butler or stupid stuff like that. Well,
- 15:53Speaker 1: I mean those movies have their meaning too, and I
- 15:56Speaker 1: think that they have their validity. For me, I agree
- 15:59Speaker 1: with you. Humanity should be displayed on a much broader
- 16:03Speaker 1: panel and a much broader platform. Um. And I think
- 16:07Speaker 1: it's up to us, um right now. You know, the
- 16:10Speaker 1: traditional ways of distribution and movies are part of the
- 16:14Speaker 1: reality of media. But at Sundance this year they had
- 16:19Speaker 1: this film celebrated that was made by three iPhones and
- 16:25Speaker 1: it's got made your distribution. So if we want to
- 16:27Speaker 1: tell our story, those of us who have those skills,
- 16:30Speaker 1: there's nothing stopping us. But we're waiting for somebody to
- 16:34Speaker 1: save us, or somebody to give us permission discover ourselves
- 16:39Speaker 1: to make any sense. Absolutely, that's what has to happen now. Man,
- 16:42Speaker 1: We appreciate you joining us, and by the way, you
- 16:47Speaker 1: mentioned that you're gonna stop by asking that I'll be
- 16:51Speaker 1: in your hometown this weekend too, do the show in Poughkeepsie. Yeah,
- 16:57Speaker 1: this weekend. Great, great, great man, thank you. Baravon theater
- 17:00Speaker 1: something called the Midtown okay, the main Street. Yeah yeah.
- 17:04Speaker 1: His next question is gonna be where is the weed at?
- 17:06Speaker 1: But you tell him you don't roll like I don't.
- 17:09Speaker 1: I don't roll like that. Man, you can't take it.
- 17:11Speaker 1: The weird is I don't know into that, but my
- 17:13Speaker 1: cousin can't. It's the Breakfast Club by the way. Last
- 17:20Speaker 1: thing by the Dark Girl's Book. Girl, Yes, I have
- 17:22Speaker 1: that home. I love that book. It's right on my um.
- 17:24Speaker 1: It's like my coffee table book. Yeah, Amazon dot com
- 17:27Speaker 1: or in uh, you know what. The Dark Girl's Book
- 17:30Speaker 1: is a table The book just pictures a beautiful cover. Yes,
- 17:35Speaker 1: that's a beautiful girl to check it out. Yes, very
- 17:37Speaker 1: true