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" I'm seeing more and more people of color do what I do as showrunners, and that's so great. I would love to get to the point where we don't have to talk about it anymore. "

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" It... does... not... have... to... be... pointed out all the time. Like, 'Isn't it great that you're black, and you're a woman?' Isn't it great that the show's good? I would just love for it not to be a thing - for it just to be, like, super norm. "

Courtney A. Kemp

Black

Good

Great

" My dad and his sister, who is no longer with us, used to dance on the streets for money. They had nothing. "

" I always wanted to make a show that had everything I wanted to watch, as opposed to just one or two things. "

" Show-running is a very difficult job that includes so many responsibilities; I'm working with the actors, working with directors, writing, making decisions like, 'What fabric is that sofa gonna be?' "

Courtney A. Kemp

Difficult

Job

" In college, I didn't know whether to hang out with the black kids or the white kids, and then I found the theatre kids, and I was like, 'Oh, it doesn't matter.' We were all weird and listening to Morrissey and wearing Doc Martens so that was my tribe. "

" Great power is setting a goal, working hard for it, and achieving it in exactly the way you expected with no consequences and no remainders after the long division is done. But does that happen to anyone? The unexpected always hitches a ride along with everything you planned. "

" I think television is about the characters you want to see again, and so you want to invite these people into your home. And certainly, seeing them get into bad situations and then watching them have to get themselves out, that's always super satisfying. "

" I think women judge other women more harshly, always, which is a shame. "

Courtney A. Kemp

Judge

Shame

" If you are other, you don't think twice about hiring people who are other. "

" You don't keep your job if you don't make a great show. "

" I very much want to write about some elements of my own growing up. "

" I always like to write myself into a corner. I think the best stuff comes from only having a few ways out. "

" I really try to plot in a fearless fashion. I try not to care about not knowing the answer before I get there; I just jump in first and see what happens. "

" My dad was very, very invested in image. He felt that as a black person, the thing you could control was how did you look, how did you dress, how did you sound, how did you smell, how did you act. All of that stuff that you could control would absolutely have a strong impact on your access. "

" I love Pusha T and The Clipse. "

Courtney A. Kemp

Love

I Love

" Being a writer is great because you get to come up with stuff. "

" The impetus for 'Power' was me writing about my dad, who was an advertising executive and very interested in image. He thought that perception was reality and what people thought of you was what was real about you. "

" I don't write scenes where one person is right and one person is wrong. It's very much by design that everyone has a point of view that you as an audience member can understand. "

" I think as long as I can tell you a story about people that you understand, it doesn't matter if you don't like what they do; you understand why they did it. "

" I called my show 'Power' because, for me, the whole series is about the way my main character, Ghost, is power-less over his circumstances, even though he has almost endless access to money and guns. "

" There are some aspects of the story of 'Power' that clearly are about race in the sense that any one of us now who's black and was raised in this country was raised with a lie, which is, 'You can never be president.' That's not true. "

" I thought I was going to be a professor; then I ran screaming from there into magazine journalism. "

" I had to figure out that finding my place was not about race but about creativity, and connecting with other artists helped me find my voice. "

Courtney A. Kemp

Place

Finding

" I remember watching episodes of 'The Sopranos' and being filled with dread knowing what was coming or anticipating what was coming. I don't think that that's always a bad thing. I think sometimes the audience needs a little catharsis held away from them. "

" My parents were 30 years older than I was, and my parents had my brother and I ten years apart. My parents grew up in segregation, and they both lived in all-black neighborhoods and grew up with large black families. I didn't have any of that, and I didn't understand feeling so differently and being treated so differently. "

" God is in control of everything. "

" When I'm at work, I want to be with my daughter, and when I'm with my daughter, I probably should be working, and it just is what it is. "

" When we started on 'Power,' I was committed to respecting the differences among Spanish dialects: Dominican, Nuyorican, Mexican, etc. I wanted the language our characters spoke to be as specific as possible, to reflect New York as it is. "

" The only black folks in town when I was growing up were me and my cousins and one other family. "

Courtney A. Kemp

Family

Black

" I say a prayer several times a day about what I can control and what I can't control. "