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" When you have filmmakers like Justin Simien, writers, producers, actresses like Lena Waithe, who are people of color, they're creating their own content and saying, 'You know what? We're not going to wait on someone else to tell our story. We're going to do it ourselves. You can be a part of it or not.' "

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" When I look at material, I get excited by things that are telling the truth because that's what you want to do: tell somebody else's truth. "

Teyonah Parris

Truth

Look

You

" It was not hard for me to find guidance and motivation. I'm very blessed, and my parents were always so supportive of myself and my brother. Whatever you wanted to do, you just had to give 110 percent. So whatever that was, they supported it. "

" I think people need to watch 'Chi-Raq' because you need to know what's happening in your back yard. "

" I'm like any other girl: I see the Instagram posts and the Tumblr stuff. I'm inspired by what my fellow girls are doing. "

Teyonah Parris

I See

See

" I went to this arts high school in Greenville, S.C. In speech class, the teacher, a white man, would say, 'You're talking ghetto. Don't talk ghetto.' I'm not only offended, but I'm confused because while there's nothing wrong with people who come from the projects or the ghetto, that's actually not my experience. "

" I try to be very particular about the roles I choose and what they say and put into the universe. I try to do my part. "

" It's no coincidence that the cities with the highest rates of violence also have the highest rates of unemployment. There are not many opportunities. We have to address that, starting from the government down and the grassroots up. "

" An actor hears 'no' more often than the average person. A black human and a black woman on top of that? That's a lot of no's. "

" When I choose a role, what I'm looking for is the ability is to tell our stories. Me being a black woman, that's just a given. It's going to be a part of any role I do, making sure I tell it truthfully and nuanced and in a way that many people can relate to. "

" I'm looking through old things of mine, and there was this binder from when I was 14 years old. It is essentially a dream board. It is a school binder that I had put magazine clippings on. It said, 'TV actress, fame, a picture of Halle Berry, a picture of Christina Aguilera.' I was obsessed with both of them. "

" I don't even watch basketball. I can't even pretend. "

" I've had the struggling actor experience. At one point in New York, I was holding four jobs, including bottle service girl, while I was trying to break into acting. "

" Whatever it is you do, study it, learn the ins and outs of it, and really work on building your craft. "

" I had been getting relaxers since I was eight or nine. I had no clue. It was a personal mission to really find out who am when I'm not altering myself to look like anybody else. Who am I when I wake up and I don't do anything to my hair? Who is that woman? I want to meet her. And that was what catapulted my journey into going natural. "

" When I looked at 'Dear White People,' you have four African-American students who are all very different and who are trying to figure out who they are. They're dealing with identity issues and crises. That is exciting to me, to see African-American young people on a page, on a screen, who are so diverse and whose stories are all so different. "

" You have to be resilient to be a black person in America. The thing about being resilient is being able to fall apart and pick yourself up again. And putting yourself back together, that improves on what you were before. "

" I'm influenced by many things. Simply turning on the television, I feel inundated with images and messages to be a certain way. So I try to limit my influences by being aware of what I allow into my environment. I'm always conscious of what's trying to creep into my subconscious. "

" I always want to tell the truth. It doesn't have to be a pretty truth, and it doesn't have to be a life-changing and life-threatening truth like 'Chi-Raq.' But I want to tell someone's truth in an effort to inspire people to see themselves reflected on the screen. "

" It feels good to be a role model for little girls who don't often see natural hair on the red carpet. "

" Generally, when I'm going to a new project, I take my own makeup. I'll explain to them what it is that I would like. If they are receptive, we figure it out together. If they're not, I'll be going to back to my trailer and doing my own makeup. And that's the same for hair. "

" I got my first relaxer when I was nine years old. This was in the '90s, and I convinced my mom to let me perm my hair so I could wear a French roll with the crimps in the front. "

" When you just come into a show that's already established, you feel that they're family, and they have a way of doing things and running things. "

" You look at 'Survivor's Remorse.' Or 'Blackish.' Or Issa Rae's brilliant, funny 'Insecure,' which started out on YouTube but is now on HBO. And you see multifaceted representations of the African-American experience. It's insanely exciting. "

" As a girl, I remember looking up to pop singers, and they all had long, straight weaves and light skin. And I thought, 'That's what I have to look like if I'm going to be fierce and sexy and all those things.' "

" When you get into this industry and the restrictions placed on women, first, and then on women on color, next? Yeah, this business comes with its challenges. But I do not shy away from those challenges. "

" The person that inspired me throughout most of my childhood was Angela Bassett. "

" In my junior year of high school, I went to a boarding school for the arts: a school called the Governor's School for The Arts and Humanities. It was basically a mini-Juilliard - an intense training conservatory for the arts. "

" It's so important... to have a variety of representation on television. "

" I love my 'Survivor's Remorse' cast. They are so funny and crazy, like a big dysfunctional family. It's so much fun, and I love the issues that we talk about on that show. We deal with nuanced and controversial issues, and we do it in a way that's funny. It's comedy. "

" It's important, as a young person of color, to see yourself reflected in the media. "