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" 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. "

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" Whenever you put a family together, they may share some points of views and morals, but there are going to be differences. "

Kenya Barris

Together

Morals

Family

" You get a little older, and you start understanding the world in a different way and what you don't have control over and what you do have control over. "

" 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

" I tried to do Kwanzaa with my family and was like, 'This sucks. What am I doing this for?' For me, I felt like I was doing it because I was trying to live up to someone else's idea of what 'black' was. "

" I believe comedy is a really good lens to filter serious issues through. If people are laughing, they don't necessarily realize until they stop laughing that they just took something in that's going to start a conversation. "

" 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

" We should be aware and constantly having conversations about the world because that's how you change it from the bigger standpoint rather than acutely trying to change things. "

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

" I really want to do what 'Veep' did. 'Veep,' in a very comical way, gave us a look inside the political machine, but I want to do it for the average American family. "

" Actors are magical people. They can take words you wrote and say them in a way that, although you thought the line was good when you wrote it, it's fantastic when it comes out of their mouth. "

" I know a lot for me, personally, the best moments have come from watching my kids have an experience I never thought about as a kid but then remembered as a parent. "

Kenya Barris

Thought

Best

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

" As a creative, you have to be your truest form. You can't worry about fitting into whatever boxes people want to put you in. "

" 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. "

" I love Meryl Streep. "

" Honestly, I regret not having spanked my kids. "

" I think that's the key to any artistic endeavor: You want it to feel fresh and not have people look at it like it's re-creation of something else unless it's done in a really strong way. "

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

" When you walk past a painting in a museum, if it doesn't make you feel something, then it's probably a failure. "

" I would say any creative person has that: you can't just force a topic. Whether you're a painter, you want to do a cartoon. Anything. Something may come up that's not your style or suited to what you are working on at the moment. So you file it away and hopefully find a place for it. "

" 'A Different World,' for me, was in a lot of ways responsible for me going to college. I wanted to go to a black college, and I wanted to get out of Los Angeles. It's just a natural part of all of our journeys, that idea of leaving home. "

Kenya Barris

Black

World

" To me, the Peabody was as big if not bigger than any award, but I do understand an Emmy Award-winning show has a different buzz when it comes to start talking about renewals and things like that. There's a professional something to it that matters. "

Kenya Barris

Talking

Start

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

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

" I hear people say, 'I'm not a role model' all the time, and it's like, 'Well, of course you're not!' It doesn't mean that people aren't going to look at you as one, though. "

" I've been on predominantly 'white' shows before, and I had also been on predominantly 'black' shows. I would complain that when I was on a white show, they would only hire me because there was a black character or they needed a black voice. But then I would be mad if they went and hired a white dude in my position. "

" There has never been a prosecuted case of slavery. There's no criminality to it. So, it was just like, 'It's over,' and thus, because it was over, and it was never considered 'wrong' in the prosecutable, criminal sense of the word, the country doesn't take it as wrong. "

" 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

" The thing that I get so often with network comedies - and, I think, some of the most brilliant people in the world do them - but it's easy to hide behind a joke. I kind of feel like when you have to face things, and you don't have humor, it becomes very vulnerable; it exposes your deepest and darkest fears in some aspects. "