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" I never liked 'Donnie Darko' quite as much as my film school peers. "

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

" The way Hollywood and TV is, black people don't have any choice but to see ourselves in white-dominated television shows and stories and movies. "

" '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. "

" 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. "

" I think I have a threshold for taking things too seriously. "

" 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. "

" I tend to take on too many projects at the same time, but as I've always done, I will continue to shift my focus onto whatever feels most urgent in the moment. "

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

" Everyone at a performing arts schools is weird. The weirder you were, the better. If you weren't weird in some way, they'd look at you and be like, 'Who's that square?' "

" I know it's 'Dear White People,' and you can imprint all kinds of concessions about what the show might be about on the title, but my goal was never to, like, educate white people. My goal was always to create characters that you can relate to and fall in love with. "

" I saw 'Beauty and the Beast' at eight years old in theatres and spent hours trying to recreate the majestic imagery of that story in a drawing notepad at home. "

" I like the movies that embrace the complexity of the human condition. "

" Self-doubt is a constant companion for a chubby, gay, black boy born in the South. "

" I definitely have fun commenting on the real world and interpreting through the 'Dear White People' lens. "

" 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. "

" It's not new to attempt to vilify the minority that speaks about their oppression. That's not a new thing. "

" Racism is over in the 'Star Trek' future, but they found a way to comment on sexism and racism in the present day in such a subversive and smart way, you know? "

" Shows like 'Empire'... one of the most profound powerful things is that there's a gay male character who is loved. That character is going to save a lot of people's lives. Black families are confronting the idea that a gay black character can be human. "

" When you're part of a society where you're constantly having to define your identity and sort of negotiate with what the mainstream culture thinks you are, you have less energy and time to figure out who you are when you go home at night. "

" There is an obsession with black tragedy. If you see a black movie, it's typically historical, and it tends to deal with our pain. And listen, there have been some excellent films made in that vein, and there are some painful parts of black history that should be explored, but it is kind of weird that only those films bubble up to the surface. "

" There are a plethora of ways of being black, just like there's many ways to being white. "

" I was blessed enough to know that I wanted to be a filmmaker when I was a kid, the first time I realized that that was something people did for a living. "

" It is frustrating having to walk through America having to bob and weave people's impressions of me because they see a tall black guy walking down the street. That is frustrating. "

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

" I loved Lena Dunham's 'Girls.' "

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

" 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 distinctly not seeing myself. I didn't see myself in black culture, white culture, mass culture. "

" I took an internship at Focus Features while I was in film school. I was really interested in how specialty movies were marketed and found their audience despite being about topics that were outside of the mainstream. "

" I'm not a big fan of shooting something that looks like it could belong in any movie. I'm not a fan of, okay, 'wide shot, wide shot, medium shot, close-up, close-up - we'll figure it out in post.' I hate that. "