Listen Now: The Sage Steele Show | Billy Dee Williams
03:22 Share

Because, and especially now, this crazy world and social media and people can attack anonymously. It's a whole, right? But I've always been fascinated when people tell you, 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. 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,

you know, why, because we have the same similar skin color? Like what are the rules there? And I always was a little not knowing them, especially at the time. Why is there pressure? Why is there pressure from, you know, 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.

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. 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. So you say what you want to say. Yes, that's pretty much it, I guess. Listen, if people want to join organizations, they want to join groups, if they want to

I create a kind of solidarity that gives them credence or some purpose. That's fine. But there are those of us who don't need to go through life in that way.

in 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. 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. And that's beautiful, isn't it? Yeah, absolutely. That's diversity. Yeah, I mean, that's the way it should be. I mean, you know, there are lessons to be learned and

If somebody comes along with a point of view that can be useful, then I would say I personally welcome it. To listen and have a conversation. Yeah, you know. And that's the other thing, you know, I think listening is very important. Not so much trying to... Like influence others almost with our own views.

Yeah, you know, but, you know, listen, we're dealing with human nature, humanity, this thing called humanity. And it is what it is. But if you're a personality that feels that you have a way of doing things in a certain way, I think that's what you should do.