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" Black people are experiencing a systemic disadvantage, and it goes back to slavery, which was not that long ago. "

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" Hip-hop isn't dead by any means, but it's not something I define my black identity with. "

" Satire and comedy are really the only film mediums where you can get into ideas and have people leave the theater without being moralized. "

" I think we all have identity crises throughout our lives. "

" One of the things that I love about Robert Altman's movies is that, really, a Robert Altman movie is just a bunch of short films about various people told at the same time. "

" It is a fine line between making fun of the right thing and making fun of the wrong thing. And the language oftentimes is the same. "

The Right Thing

" Films with predominantly white casts can come in any form, tell any story, big or small. For black films, you have the light, fluffy rom-coms or 'Madea' movies, and then you have the black-torture awards movie. "

" I find myself listening to Blood Orange and Janelle Monae and artists like that. "

" It occurred to me that by naming the film itself 'Dear White People,' I could tap into the burgeoning meme culture as well as make a meta-commentary about the controversies within the film. "

" You can't get along in society without an identity. "

" There is a difference between being offended and being prejudiced and even being bigoted against. There's a difference between that and racism. "

" The mark of a really great satire is its ability to seem prophetic, and I think that the television culture that film predicted really came true in the age of reality television and is a testament to how great it really is. "

" I love great prestige television, but because I make television, sometimes I don't want to, like, you know, fall into a very heavy cerebral drama. "

" As much as I'd love to believe that we are 'post-racial' - an idea that really gained traction after the election of Barack Obama in 2008 - I can never escape the fact that in the world I am perceived as a 'black man' and, in certain parts of the world, as a 'black gay man.' "

" I think we are aware that post-racialism isn't real, right? I mean, I hope so. I kind of joke that we're post-post-racial. "

" Daring to make films of any kind and thus invite the possibility of ridicule was an internal battle of mine for many years as I worked on the screenplay for what would become 'Dear White People' beginning at the end of George W. Bush's second term. "

" The Black Lives Matter movement has spawned all kinds of activism. "

" We like to think of the '60s as Martin Luther King, Jr. and Malcolm X and a little bit of friction - no, there were all of these different groups. There was the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC), the Black Panthers, Martin and Malcolm, but also the Whitney Youngs of the world, the Bayard Rustins of the world. "

" I thought I was depressed because I wasn't a writer/director. I moved into a space where I'm a writer/director, my movie is a hit at Sundance, I have a wonderful, loving boyfriend, and wow, I have financial stability. Why can't I get out of bed still? "

" I think art is much more valuable when it's honest. If it's not honest, it's just propaganda. "

" The downside of doing a multi-protagonist movie is that you don't get to service each character as you would if they were the central protagonist of the movie. "

" If I just wanted to put clean, perfect images of black people on the screen for an hour and a half, first of all, there are other people already doing that, and they're making a lot of money doing it. "

" For whatever reason, gay characters, or characters that deal with sexuality issues, who are black, in 'black films'... are typically not dealt with with any sort of complexity. They're exoticized: their being gay is sort of the point. "

" I've always thought that 'Dear White People' should live on as a TV show, so I'll leave it at that. "

" Everybody else was quoting 2Pac, and I was running around with Green Day in my Walkman. Racially speaking, I wasn't cool or appropriate for any group. "

" Part of my struggle with being gay was that a lot of my homophobia was internalized because of the cues that I was - received. I didn't see anybody like myself in the culture. RuPaul was the closest to a gay, out black man that I had growing up. "

" You know what, man, that's part and parcel of being a black person in this country: everything's harder. It just is. "

" I remember the first time that I realized that being black meant that I wasn't allowed certain things. It was in the fourth grade, and it was who I thought was my best friend not inviting me to his birthday party because I would be the only black kid there. It was the first time I ever felt restricted, and it certainly wasn't the last time. "

" I want to make movies in every genre. "

" I see racism as institutional: the rules are different for me because I'm black. It's not necessarily someone's specific attitude against me; it's just the fact that I, as a black man, have a much harder time making an art-house movie and getting it released than a white person does about their very white point of view. That's racism. "

" 'Color-blind' comes up - people say 'Oh, I'm color-blind and therefore can't be accused of racism,' but I think that if we are going to have an honest dialogue about racism, we have to admit that people of color are having a different experience. "