(To the audience, looking at her skin)
I’m black. (Laughs) That’s kind of a given. But there are things about me that are a little different. I like different things. I wanted to be white when I was a young girl. (Laughs) Back then I was five years old and all I wanted for Christmas was to be white. I’d put stockings on my head so I could swing my “hair” (Laughs). I always thought Frank Sinatra was the cutest in the Rat Pack and not Sammy Davis Jr. (Beat) I always saw the difference between who I was, and who I thought I wanted to be.
I have always been a believer in choices. I believe that there are good choices and bad choices but no matter which one you make they are yours, you have to own them. My father's choices put him here. (Beat) I’m absolutely discussed at the fact that my father is in prison. He made the choice to be here and for the longest time I refused to visit him, this is his life not mine. And it is because of that reason that I will only come here once every year. One time a year I make the trip to come and visit my father. We talk, I updated him on what is going on in my life, showing pictures of my house, my office, my dog, my life. Because that is the only way that I'll allow him to participate. And every year my father begs me to come see him more often and to write him letters and to send more pictures. And every year I say no without discussion or conversation. You see these walls and that cell, the barbwire fence and being searched daily was not a choice that I made, it was a choice that he made himself. Once a year was more than enough for me.
