Quotes of All Topics . Occasions . Authors
Hollywood has had a very limited way of telling stories about black people.
The way black people feel, especially, is if you're going to tell a black story, let it come from a real place.
It's important to tell the story you're telling in the right way, which might involve black people or people of whatever heritage or ethnicity - or it might not.
Last year, when we were in Mobile, Al., covering Hurricane Ivan, we heard the stories of poor people, many of them black stranded downtown because they had no way out.
I think that for the most part, black people specifically have sort of been used as props in TV shows as a way to move story along or as a way to make things more entertaining.
The projects that I end up doing, that I want to be involved with in any way, have always been projects that will be impactful, for the most part, to my people - to black people.
The way we have been programmed and conditioned to think about the black kid being an athlete, it's like every young black boy people would see say 'what sport do you play?' instead of just asking 'what do you do?' 'What are you interested in?'
We who follow the Honorable Elijah Muhammad feel that when you try and pass integration laws here in America, forcing white people to pretend that they are accepting black people, what you are doing is making white people act in a hypocritical way.
I've heard people say, 'Why do you have to do a show that's called 'Black Girls Rock'?' or 'Why is there an expression called 'black girl magic'?' You know, when you say, 'Save the dolphins,' you don't mean, 'I don't like whales.' That's just not the way it works!
It's so important to create roles and characters and projects that feature black people in a way that's not specifically targeted towards the niche market, which is, like, a black movie is created, and it's produced and pitched so that only black people will watch it.
I give thanks for the fact that I can get this stick with a bit of steel nib on the end, dip it in some black carbon stuff, and draw on paper. Now, people did it the same way 2,000 years ago. And there's something lovely about that play, and making mud pies and a mess. That's a lovely privilege.
It's fascinating that people, there's so many people now who will make judgments based on what you look like. I'm black. So I'm supposed to think a certain way. I'm supposed to have certain opinions. I don't do that. You don't create a box and put people in and then make a lot of generalizations about them.