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" Part of my struggle with being gay was that a lot of my homophobia was internalized because of the cues that I was - received. I didn't see anybody like myself in the culture. RuPaul was the closest to a gay, out black man that I had growing up. "

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" 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. "

Justin Simien

People

Black

Walking

" 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. "

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

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

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

" '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. "

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

" 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 thought I was depressed because I wasn't a writer/director. I moved into a space where I'm a writer/director, my movie is a hit at Sundance, I have a wonderful, loving boyfriend, and wow, I have financial stability. Why can't I get out of bed still? "

" The thing about TV is you kind of have an endless canvas. You can always keep going. "

" 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. "

" I wanted to be a filmmaker since I was a kid. I always did things that took me a little closer to that. "

Justin Simien

Things

Wanted

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

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

" '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. "

" We like to think of the '60s as Martin Luther King, Jr. and Malcolm X and a little bit of friction - no, there were all of these different groups. There was the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC), the Black Panthers, Martin and Malcolm, but also the Whitney Youngs of the world, the Bayard Rustins of the world. "

Justin Simien

King

Black

" 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?' "

" Hollywood is a world where the only thing that gets green-lit is something that made money the last year. "

" Usually, with 'Star Trek,' you always trust the captain. The captains are always going to pull us through; the captain's always going to win. "

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

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

" 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. "

" I think I'll always be making movies that intend to say something new. "

" If you walk out of a movie that's meant to be about race in our country, and you're feeling good and happy, then that movie didn't tell you all of the truth. It's too big of an issue, and it's too complicated for you to feel good. It's something you should feel like you need to talk about. "

" Films with predominantly white casts can come in any form, tell any story, big or small. For black films, you have the light, fluffy rom-coms or 'Madea' movies, and then you have the black-torture awards movie. "

" 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 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. "

" We get caught in our little silos and end up working against ourselves. And I think social media culture really encourages that, because you're really just shouting into a void hoping someone picks up on what you're saying. "

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

Justin Simien

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