Get QuoteDark Inspirational Quotes App

" There are people who get to be three-dimensional humans in the United States, and there are people who do not. "

Related Quotes:

" Most black families went from the South to the city. My family went from the South to the city to the suburbs because they wanted their children to have the realization of the suburban lifestyle. What does it mean that that doesn't actually protect you? "

" I think fear has been racialised. When you get someone who says 'I was afraid' of a big black guy, that's enough to say, 'Okay, not guilty,' or, 'No indictment.' It's persisted over generations, and it needs to stop. "

" It would be easier for people to grasp that gender, sex, and sexual orientation are different things if we had as much imagination in real life as we do when we are making our movies. "

" My father just believed in my mother's ability to do anything. "

" White communities - and I exempt poor white communities from this - have power over their representation. White people have the ability to define themselves, to exert their agency in a way that they get to be believed. No one believes black people. No one. Until a white person vouches for them. "

" Film festivals are usually unpleasant experiences on some level. The lines are ridiculous, the crowds are ridiculous, or the schedules are impossibly arranged: 'You say that there's a film you really want to see? Try the 8 A.M. show! Oh, it's too bad you didn't get to bed until 2 A.M. the night before.' "

" White people get to do that all of the time. They get to engage in bad behavior, even felonious behavior, but they rarely wind up in jail. But as a black person, losing your temper can cost you your life. Or insisting on your rights can cost you your life. "

" Everyone in the street where I grew up was given the same message: You can be anything; you can do anything. That wasn't extraordinary; that was ordinary for us. My folks didn't believe in black exceptionalism. There's nothing exceptional about 'You can have that, too' - except when it comes to justice. You can't have that. "

" We have to deal with the way that race influences our criminal justice system. "

Criminal Justice

" The quality of festival Q&As is often a matter of chance. Sometimes the lights come up on movies I loved, and not a single meaningful question is asked. Sometimes it's the opposite. "

" My impression is that the Academy is really sincere about moving toward a more inclusive and representative Hollywood. "

" There is nothing quite as exciting as watching a master at work. "

" I have been gender-nonconforming my entire life. "

" It's important that people understand that 'Strong Island' is just as much about this claim of reasonable fear and our need to interrogate reasonable fear as it is about my family's grief. "

" I don't think I present as gender-conforming on screen, but some people need a little extra information. "

" Grief is a very complicated monster. There's no real exorcising of it. It has a different form every day. "

" I have a lot of surrogate parents, but there's no one like your mother. "

" People come up and say, 'Thank you' for showing a black family loving their masculine-presenting child and for undoing the myth of black people as being rabidly homophobic. "

" Instincts are a really important guide for any artist, but particularly filmmakers because it takes a lot to stay true to your instincts as a storyteller. "

" Being nominated is such a tremendous honor. An Oscar win for me and for the 'Strong Island' team would be the cap to an incredible journey. But it would also mean that my brother will not disappear from history. "

" I would hate for people to think that 'Strong Island' is just about a family's grief. It is about a family's grief, yes, but it is also an interrogation of our criminal justice system. "

" What 'Strong Island' does is bring a historical perspective and help people understand that what we're treating as a modern-day phenomenon is actually not modern. It's actually quite old. "

" I hope that audiences understand that there is a precariousness to black lives in this country that we need to address, that there has always been a precariousness to black lives in this country that we need to address. In fact, our country is built on the precariousness of black lives, the disposability of black lives. "

" Grief, for me, is a moment-to-moment experience. "

" When I was making 'Strong Island,' it was very clear to me that my brother's death was a point on a line that stretched back into the 1940s and beyond in my family - and in the nation. "

" I remind audiences that I'm in the fortunate position to make a film about my family. "

" Violence against the other, and the way we otherize people out of fear, has to be examined across the board. "

" If I can help one family embrace their child and not displace them and throw them out, I'm happy about that. "

" Black lives are too easy to take in America because we don't want to question why people are so afraid of black and brown people to begin with. And that's what I want 'Strong Island' to do. "

" Our blackness and how to survive being black in America was something that our parents instilled in us extraordinarily well. "