I don't think you can bring the races together by joking about the differences between them. I'd rather talk about the similarities, about what's universal in their experiences.
I never saw anything funny in a car commercial - but that's OK. Whatever they wanted to do - it's their product and I'm the spokesperson, and I'm going to deliver.
Nothing separates the generations more than music. By the time a child is eight or nine, he has developed a passion for his own music that is even stronger than his passions for procrastination and weird clothes.
A new father quickly learns that his child invariably comes to the bathroom at precisely the times when he's in there, as if he needed company. The only way for this father to be certain of bathroom privacy is to shave at the gas station.
When I decided that I wanted to go to college, I wanted to be a school teacher for 7th and 8th grade boys because I felt that was an important time for them. I had gone astray at that point in my life and really wanted to help keep them from making the same mistake I had made.
I was 23 years old, a freshman at university, and there I was, on the first day, sitting in a remedial English class. I was so ashamed I almost got up and left, but somehow I knew inside that if I ran away from this, I would hate myself forever.
As I have discovered by examining my past, I started out as a child. Coincidentally, so did my brother. My mother did not put all her eggs in one basket, so to speak: she gave me a younger brother named Russell, who taught me what was meant by 'survival of the fittest.'
We are all anxious to be accepted. But if you have a strong mother and father who tell you that you don't have to dress a crazy way, or hang out with people who are looking for trouble in order to be loved and accepted, then half the battle is over.
No matter how calmly you try to referee, parenting will eventually produce bizarre behavior, and I'm not talking about the kids. Their behavior is always normal.
Now, Richard Pryor was unique. Many misunderstood his humor. He lit up the hallway, but they didn't understand his use of profanity. He didn't use it just to be using it; he used it in the context of his satire.
