22 Quotes by Byron Allen

Hollywood is a casino. You have to put your chips on the table and hope for the best.

I have to have a seat at the table. I have to have a say on how we, as African-Americans, are produced and depicted around the world. Along the way, I'll be very fair to white people.

When you start punishing and censoring comedians, that's a real bad sign of us as Americans losing our First Amendment rights. As a comedian, I'm gonna push the boundaries. Some things you're going to love, and some things you're going to hate. But this is America. Great people died for us to have this right.

It's odd to say we had our first African American president before our first African-American-owned movie studio, but we're making progress.

Black America now has the power to achieve economic inclusion, which we rightfully deserve because we built this country. This is a conversation that white America doesn't really want to have.

What we have to do is get the corporations to understand you must include African-American-owned media.

I think you develop strong instincts when you're a comedian. You have to pay your bills by making people laugh every six seconds... or not. I had to do that for 22 years.

When 'Real People' aired in 1979, we did OK in Los Angeles and New York. What kept that show from being canceled were the ratings from the middle of the country, and that's what kept us in the top five. I learned then from co-hosting that it was important to focus on the country between Los Angeles and New York.

At the very least, you must make the Internet free in areas that are poverty-stricken. Without the Internet and access to information, poverty-stricken households will never catch up to households above the poverty line - throwing the African-American community deeper into the stone ages.