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" 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. "

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" Here's the thing: I come from a filmmaking background, so this concept of sort of overseeing a television show but not directing was, in general, not weird, but I had to get used to what that felt like. My initial instinct was, 'I want to direct as much of this as possible.' But the logistics of making of TV, that's just not possible. "

" There is no monolithic black culture. It's completely different for someone born in Harlem to someone born in Houston or London with one exception, which is that people contributing to black culture have the experience of being black. "

" 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. "

" It's always kind of gratifying to go back to the place that launched you and show you did good. "

" Balance, I think, and self-care is something I want people to really take to heart. "

" Stories teach us empathy. They reveal to us ourselves in the skins of others. "

" 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. "

" Shonda Rhimes has figured it out, of getting multiracial casts on television and appealing to everybody. "

" I have different privileges because I am a man, and I have to acknowledge that and realize that another person of color who is also a woman is having a different experience than I am. "

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

" The further away you get from being a straight white man, the less freedoms you have to figure out who you are and negotiate what you mean to society. "

" For me it's just, I have too many ideas, man. It's a problem, actually. "

" '2001: A Space Odyssey' - I'd watched and hated it seven times before it provided the first 'religious experience' I'd ever had watching a film. Finally, I was able to pick up on what the film was transmitting almost entirely through dialogue. "

" Everyone is very aware that, not only do we have a race problem, but it's so pervasive that it affects national and global politics on a scale that I don't think a lot of people imagined. "

" There can't be reverse racism against a group that is not at a disadvantage. "

" 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. "

" 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. "

" I want the Latino 'Do the Right Thing' to happen. I want filmmakers whose voices are not represented to get a shot. "

" I never quite lived up to the image of the black man as I saw it growing up. I was never listening to the right music at the right time or wearing the right clothes at the right time. I was still listening to Michael Jackson, and everyone had sort of moved on to gangster rap. Alanis Morissette when everyone else was listening to En Vogue. "

" 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. "

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

" If you examine any aspect of the human condition long enough, you really do have to start laughing at it. Because the business of being human is kind of ridiculous. "

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

" 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. "

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

" In the press, there's this desire for the black audience to be this monolithic thing that always responds to the same stars. That's a really reductive way of looking at the black audience. "

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

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

" 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. "

" 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. "