Get QuoteDark Inspirational Quotes App

" I love marching bands. "

Related Quotes:

" Our blackness and how to survive being black in America was something that our parents instilled in us extraordinarily well. "

" 'Strong Island' is slang for Long Island, New York. And it really grew out of - what may surprise people, it really grew out of the very vibrant hip-hop scene that, you know, is located and still generates artists out of Long Island. "

" It's important that people understand that 'Strong Island' is just as much about this claim of reasonable fear and our need to interrogate reasonable fear as it is about my family's grief. "

" I will never understand how so many young women can go out in the freezing cold wearing so little clothing. "

" There are people who get to be three-dimensional humans in the United States, and there are people who do not. "

" What 'Strong Island' does is bring a historical perspective and help people understand that what we're treating as a modern-day phenomenon is actually not modern. It's actually quite old. "

" I don't think I present as gender-conforming on screen, but some people need a little extra information. "

" People come up and say, 'Thank you' for showing a black family loving their masculine-presenting child and for undoing the myth of black people as being rabidly homophobic. "

" 'Strong Island' has been a labor of love and dedication on the part of so many people, that it's just an incredible recognition to be honored. And to be the first trans director - and, I believe, the first African-American trans director - to be nominated for an Academy Award is incredibly, incredibly special to me. "

" Most black families went from the South to the city. My family went from the South to the city to the suburbs because they wanted their children to have the realization of the suburban lifestyle. What does it mean that that doesn't actually protect you? "

" White communities - and I exempt poor white communities from this - have power over their representation. White people have the ability to define themselves, to exert their agency in a way that they get to be believed. No one believes black people. No one. Until a white person vouches for them. "

" White people get to do that all of the time. They get to engage in bad behavior, even felonious behavior, but they rarely wind up in jail. But as a black person, losing your temper can cost you your life. Or insisting on your rights can cost you your life. "

" Everyone in the street where I grew up was given the same message: You can be anything; you can do anything. That wasn't extraordinary; that was ordinary for us. My folks didn't believe in black exceptionalism. There's nothing exceptional about 'You can have that, too' - except when it comes to justice. You can't have that. "

" Black lives are too easy to take in America because we don't want to question why people are so afraid of black and brown people to begin with. And that's what I want 'Strong Island' to do. "

" What little return documentary filmmakers get often comes in the form of recognition by their peers and the critics who influence doc audiences around the country. "

" I have been gender-nonconforming my entire life. "

" It would be easier for people to grasp that gender, sex, and sexual orientation are different things if we had as much imagination in real life as we do when we are making our movies. "

" When I use the word 'buzz' in successive sentences, it's clearly time for me to stop writing. "

" I hope that audiences understand that there is a precariousness to black lives in this country that we need to address, that there has always been a precariousness to black lives in this country that we need to address. In fact, our country is built on the precariousness of black lives, the disposability of black lives. "

" If I can help one family embrace their child and not displace them and throw them out, I'm happy about that. "

" I don't feel like a hero. "

" My impression is that the Academy is really sincere about moving toward a more inclusive and representative Hollywood. "

" I had a list of 10 rules when we started 'Strong Island,' and one of them was, 'Yance will never appear on camera with sync sound.' "

" My brother's death picked up my life and put it down somewhere else. I had an image of myself in my mind as a working artist, and when he died, all of that changed. "

" If my making history makes it easier for a trans kid at home somewhere to feel more at home in their skin, then I'm so excited about that. "

" I'm incredibly proud to be the first trans director to be nominated for an Oscar. "

" Violence against the other, and the way we otherize people out of fear, has to be examined across the board. "

" The justice system isn't meant to work for people of color in this country. "

" Being nominated is such a tremendous honor. An Oscar win for me and for the 'Strong Island' team would be the cap to an incredible journey. But it would also mean that my brother will not disappear from history. "

" I think fear has been racialised. When you get someone who says 'I was afraid' of a big black guy, that's enough to say, 'Okay, not guilty,' or, 'No indictment.' It's persisted over generations, and it needs to stop. "