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" I've found that the more honest and true you are and can talk about a character and people's experiences, it's less ostracizing. It actually has the opposite effect than one would think. It makes the characters and the story more inclusive. "

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" The small moments I've had to talk with President Obama, I've told him, 'I get it.' His presidency was in some ways almost overshadowed by the fact that he was the first black president. "

Kenya Barris

Black

Him

Moments

" It's hard to take a stand. You're not going to make everybody happy. "

" I'm a huge fan of writing for people rather than writing and then trying to wedge people in. I'd love to know who the people are before I can write for them. For me, it's a much more organic way to create characters. "

Kenya Barris

Love

Writing

" When you're in the middle of it, when you're a kid growing up, you don't think, 'This is my first heartbreak.' You just think, 'My heart is broken.' But then as a parent, you look back, and you see your child go through his or her first heartbreak, and you're realizing, 'Oh my God, this is her first heartbreak.' "

" For me, one of the big things I really worried about a lot was nuclear war growing up. "

" If Adam Sandler does a bad movie, he doesn't bring down the whole white race. But if Tyler Perry does, it's like, 'See what you guys do?' and that type of thing. "

" Of all the 'Black-ish' characters, Zoey is most like my daughter, who goes to U.S.C. "

" 'Black-ish' is a show that has spoken to all different types of people and brought them closer as a community, and I'm so proud of the series. "

" My mom went through civil rights; my dad went through civil rights. My name was Kenya because they wanted to give me an African name. "

Kenya Barris

Civil Rights

Name

" Writers' rooms are terrifying. You take someone whose never done this before, and this is their life's dream that is about to happen or not about to happen - that is an amazing amount of pressure to have. "

" Most importantly, I want my kids to be happy. You're only as happy as your saddest kid. "

" Everybody - every single person - has a story. Find yours and tell it in your voice. "

" After the first couple of years of on 'Black-ish,' my wife and I actually broke up. We got back together, and it was this really, really difficult time for me. "

Kenya Barris

Together

Back

" We're supposed to be becoming more evolved as a society, and we're actually becoming less evolved. "

" I dug deep, and I found that there were people who voted for Obama and then voted for Trump - because they saw what they believed was going to be hope and change, and under Obama, their particular lives did not change. "

" I love Meryl Streep. "

" For me, it was important to keep my name in 'mainstream Hollywood.' "

Kenya Barris

Important

Name

" As much as we want to say racism is dead, it's still rearing its ugly head constantly. "

" I wanted to do a show about a family that is absolutely black. Because as Du Bois has shown, we do have to live a double consciousness every day in the world. We have to walk our path and walk the mainstream path, and there's never really been a show that's talked about what that's like. "

" I think that, for so much of our matriculation through American society, black people sort of feel like outsiders. "

" I set out to tell my story, which is based on my family. Dr. Cosby told his story in 'The Cosby Show.' The comparisons stop there in terms of my creation of the show. We just both happen to have black fathers at the center of it. "

" My kids did not know that Obama was the first black president. I felt like I needed to tell them because I felt like, 'How could you not know that?' But for the ones who didn't know, he was basically the only president they knew. "

" For me, Shonda Rhimes is an amazing person that I look up to. She empowered a lot of her writers to go on and do other things while, at the same time, she made sure she kept her stamp on those things and grew her business. "

Kenya Barris

Business

Look

" I don't necessarily believe that 'The Cosby Show' should disappear as a cultural reference, but it is. That's sad to me. I understand why. He was a man who possibly did some really bad things, and he should be punished beyond a doubt. But that show, and the impact it had not just on black culture, but culture, was amazing. "

Kenya Barris

Man

Culture

" You can have good times with anyone, but it's really different and much more interesting when you look at how you get through the bad times with someone. "

" Sometimes you realize that life isn't defined by the good times. "

" My father lost a lung in a chemical accident at General Motors, and after a while, he got a settlement that sort of changed all of our lives and moved us from, what we say, 'ashy to classy' in some aspects. "

" I wanted to be a doctor, because I grew up on 'Cosby.' "

" My wife is a doctor, and we had a decent life financially. My kids were going to nice schools and had nannies. We weren't rich, but we were better off than I was growing up. And I looked around, and I was like, 'Who are these people?' It was the opposite of what I remembered growing up. "

" No civil rights movement has gotten anywhere without the help of white liberals. "