Tavis Smiley
Tavis Smiley
Tavis Smileyis an American talk show host, author, liberal political commentator, entrepreneur, advocate and philanthropist. Smiley was born in Gulfport, Mississippi, and grew up in Bunker Hill, Indiana. After attending Indiana University, he worked during the late 1980s as an aide to Tom Bradley, the mayor of Los Angeles. Smiley became a radio commentator in 1991, and starting in 1996, he hosted the talk show BET Talkon BET. After Smiley sold an exclusive interview of Sara Jane Olson to ABC...
NationalityAmerican
ProfessionRadio Host
Date of Birth13 September 1964
CityGulfport, MS
CountryUnited States of America
Capitalism is like a child: if you want the child to grow up free and productive, somebody's got to look over the shoulder of that child.
What determines your altitude in life is your attitude.
When you work for something, you appreciate it more. So what are y'all going to do with all the opportunities you inherited that you didn't have to work for?
My role on television is one of helping people reexamine the assumptions that they hold. I regard Dr. King. You would never hear me get up and speak without in some way, shape or form, referencing, Dr. King.
[In a blogosphere] everybody has an opinion now, but I don't really freaking care about - all opinions ain't created equal, because everybody can go out there and express themselves and hide behind some character we don't know who you really are, a bunch of cowards.
How do you grow up in the shadow of a guy - I want to talk about the movie in a second - but how do you grow up in the shadow of a guy who really is a legend in his own time?
Leonard Pitts, Jr. is the most insightful and inspiring columnist of his generation.
This whole notion of a post racial America was nonsense from the very beginning. It was a bad idea, a bad notion, a bad formulation when it was first raised.
When it comes to the president, we have to respect him, we have to protect him, and we have to correct him. And in my career, since he'd been on the national stage at least, I've had - I've always respected the president.
Troubled times do call for troubled songs, songs that unsettle our souls and our spirits unapologetically.
I just find in our world that forgiveness is becoming more and more a difficult thing for us to do.
I'm very musically curious and I love new experience. I'm an adventurer. Some people want to sort of stay in a safe zone and repeat the same things and give them more depth, and I want to do new things all the time
Competition's always been a product of American lifestyle
Losing teaches you something