Lee Daniels, the director responsible for PreciousThe Butler and Empire, has an outlook on race that’s somewhat surprising. 

While appearing on The Real to talk about his upcoming series on FOX entitled Star, Daniels spoke about how he basically ignores the existence of racism in his own life.

“I wouldn’t be where I was if I embraced racism,” he said.  “If I embraced it, then it became real. And if it became real, I would be an angry black man.”

He also went on to explain why he chose to make the main character of Star a white woman, in hopes to “heal” the country of the clear racial conflict that’s overtaken it over the past months to a year.

“In the beginning, [the story] is told through a white girl’s perspective because I felt that the country instinctively, I thought needed to heal,” Daniels said. “And I think that this white girl is so fabulous that black people will embrace her and white people will embrace her.”

Watch a video of Daniels’ appearance below.