Brooklyn, N.Y.-born Michael Jai (pronounced “Jye”) White, is one of Hollywood’s most respected actors and martial artists best known for his high-profile roles in Black Dynamite, Tyler Perry’s Why Did I Get Married, For Better Or For Worse, The Dark Knight and Spawn. He’s been having a great year with movies, producing and he just celebrated his fourth anniversary to his wife after a long bout of being a single dad.
“My life is the best it’s EVER been because of this woman,” shared the 52-year-old White about his wife Gillian White. “A day late on here, but Happy Anniversary to my wife and my best friend @sogillmatic.”
Gillian couldn’t pick just one word to describe how much joy Michael brings to her life so she decided to include several instead to express her feelings about their love. “Happy Anniversary to my husband @officialmichaeljai! Thank you for filling my world with every HAPPY synonym in Roget’s Thesaurus !!!!!” she shared.
“I feel like I’m one of the luckiest people on Earth,” says White. But as a teen, he garnered a reputation for being a much-feared street fighter. “I hung precariously out of line when I was a kid,” he says. “I could have gone in another direction had it not been for some intervention from positive role models at the right time. And the blessings that I have now, I have to share them.”
Being once a single father, White began to understand the challenges of what so many Black mothers face on a daily basis put things into perspective and became a catalyst for White to aggressively pursue his acting career. “I got to see what struggle really was, so I had to work hard to overcome it.”
That’s why the Yale and Brown University graduate and former middle-school teacher has long been active in causes involving African American youths, most related to diabetes and obesity prevention–and why he is getting more active in the HIV/AIDS movement.
“Being a former schoolteacher, I do a lot of work with at-risk kids and work on motivating them to go get education and prosper from that point on,” says White, who found his voice as an actor though his work as an educator.
He concedes that his platform as a performer enables him to “teach truth” to a wider audience. “And I think that with something like the HIV/AIDS movement that can use my help, I can’t think of anything else more worthy of my time.”
White knows firsthand the power that celebrities can have in spurring action among young people: Former NBA star Magic Johnson first inspired him to get tested for HIV/AIDS. “That hit home,” says White, “and I thought, if he can contract the virus, so can I. That got me into the clinic.”
Like many people at that time, White believed that “the high-risk groups for AIDS were homosexual men and…
…intravenous drug users,” he admits. “In fact, I had gotten some false advice early on from a physician who actually said, ‘You’re a straight man, and you can’t get it unless you’re a gay man or a drug user,’ so I’m thinking, ‘Okay, I’m cool.’ That was until Magic Johnson made that announcement.”
White says that he was particularly moved by the campaign message “Greater Than AIDS” because he feels there have been generations of people believing that they are “less than.” “We call ourselves by names that are less than who we are,” says White, who eventually channeled the fighting spirit of his youth into martial arts: He holds black belts in shotokan, ITF tae kwon do, tang soo do and four other karate styles. “I feel that there are people in our communities who really don’t feel that they deserve clean bills of health. I really try to encourage Black people to respect their bodies and work out. I live as an example of someone who believes in physical fitness and being healthy.”
Because, he adds, “we’re descendants of the strongest of the strong, and I believe that’s something to be very proud of. We are worthy of so, so much.”
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