Listen Now: The Sage Steele Show | Billy Dee Williams

Speaker 1 Because, and especially now, this crazy world and social media, and people can attack anonymously. It's a whole right.

Speaker 1 But I've always been fascinated when people tell you,

Speaker 1 anyone, but especially if you're a public figure, that this is how you should act or speak or vote or whatever based on your skin color.

Speaker 1 And with Tiger and Michael Jordan, they kept saying, Well, you need to do this and stand up more for the black community. And they said,

Speaker 1 you know, why? Because we have the same similar skin color? Like,

Speaker 1 what are the rules there? And I always was a little, not knowing them, especially at the time,

Speaker 1 why is there pressure? Why is there pressure from

Speaker 1 the black community to say, you must do this? And I respect them for doing what you did, which is saying, this is how I choose. to live regardless of what the expectations are.

Speaker 1 Why do you think there's that kind of pressure that people put on each other? I think most people are not. They don't think as individuals.
I don't know.

Speaker 1 Let me see if I can put this into words without offending anybody. Listen, it's great.
Let me repeat the quote that you said. At this stage of my life, I don't need to apologize for anything.

Speaker 1 So you say what you want to say. Yes.
That's pretty much it, I guess.

Speaker 1 Listen, if people want to join organizations, they want to join groups, if they want to create a kind of solidarity that gives them credence or some purpose,

Speaker 1 that's fine. But there are those of us who don't need to

Speaker 1 go through life in

Speaker 1 that way. Being put in a box almost.
It's like, why am I, I have to think this way because I look this way? That's closed-minded.

Speaker 1 That's actually racist to me, where I'm like, no, we are individuals in a beautiful way. We don't have to think the same.
We probably have very different opinions about things.

Speaker 1 And that's beautiful, isn't it? Yeah, absolutely. That's diversity.
Yeah, I mean, that's the way it should be.

Speaker 1 I mean,

Speaker 1 like, you know, there are lessons to be learned. And

Speaker 1 somebody,

Speaker 1 if somebody comes along with a point of view

Speaker 1 that can be useful,

Speaker 1 then I would say

Speaker 1 I personally welcome it.

Speaker 1 To listen and have a conversation and to yeah, you know,

Speaker 1 and that's the other thing, you know. I think listening is very important,

Speaker 1 not so much trying to like influence others almost with our own views, yeah, you know,

Speaker 1 but you know, listen, we're dealing with the human nature, huh humanity, the in this thing called humanity.

Speaker 1 Um

Speaker 1 and it it is what it is.

Speaker 1 Uh but uh

Speaker 1 if you're a s

Speaker 1 personality that feels that you have a way of doing things in a certain way,

Speaker 1 I think that's what you should do.