Benjamin Watson

My grandfather was born in 1920. His grandfather was born in 1860, at the beginning of the Civil War, into an America where slavery had yet to be abolished. And so, as I have sometimes thought about it, I dodged slavery by just five generations.

I don't think of people as black or white. It's a question of are they photogenic or not? I don't think anyone says, 'Let's book her. She's black.' I think they say, 'Let's book her. She's good.' We've come that far.