Justin Simien Quotes

In Hollywood, there is one dominant voice. It is a white, male, straight gaze. When I talk about positive portrayals of black people and women, I'm saying complexity. I'm not saying goody-two-shoes, everything's okay. No. The positive view of me is to see me as I am: the 'good,' the 'bad,' the gray. That is a positive portrayal.

I always thought that when I got into this business that I was going to have to downplay my Asianness and downplay my queerness, which is not an easy thing for me to do.

Especially when you're queer and you're a person of color, you're so used to being the token on set. Inevitably you have to answer dumb questions from someone. You're the 'other.'

Being the person I am, you know, the size I am, being a woman, being a black woman, there's not a lot of roles for us.

I was the first South Asian female to do comedy videos on YouTube. But at the same time, all races face their barriers, and I've learned through YouTube, if it's not race, it will be sexism, if it's not sexism, it will be homophobia. It will always be something, and all voices should be heard.

When I first started, all the media I ever got was, 'Hey! There's this Indian girl. And even though she is Indian, she gets views and stuff.'

There's always someone asking you to underline one piece of yourself - whether it's Black, woman, mother, dyke, teacher, etc. - because that's the piece that they need to key in to. They want to dismiss everything else.

I'm not a big fan of identity politics and sort of picking one thing and defining yourself with it.

People of color have a constant frustration of not being represented, or being misrepresented, and these images go around the world.

What does it mean to be too black for Hollywood? It's self-explanatory. Hollywood has certain kinds of blacks that they like.

There's always been a quiet conversation and joke that if you're not hard, if you're not from impoverished neighborhoods, if you're not certain constructs of a black stereotype, then you not black.

There was a criticism of 'Milk' that I found truth in, which was that it was focused on gay white men.

I say it in the writers' room all the time: My black is not your black. What's terrifying is that, just the same way we've all accepted that normal is white, everybody seems to buy into the idea that there's only one way to be black or one way to be Hispanic. That's as damaging as anything else.

I've never been a person that has had fear of, like, 'Oh, I don't want to be the poster child for all black lesbian women.' I don't know. I want to be someone in the public eye that they can be proud of.

Some of white middle America haven't seen a black gay guy in a music video before.

It's really interesting when I go into a community where they haven't seen me before because I often get, 'I didn't know you were black.'

Why is it when a woman makes a film or a movie stars a female cast it is labeled women-centric because it is not white, male and middle-class men?

All the excuses that people in power used to make for not telling diverse stories or including diverse people, they've proven to be false.

I'm definitely drawn to stories about outsiders. Feeling like that myself as a gay black man, I often seek to give a voice to those in the world who don't have one.

If you're anything other than a white, cisgender, able-bodied dude, people are going to project narratives, imagery, and context onto you that you might not necessarily see for yourself.

I am just a young black man living my dream, people are trying to smear my reputation.

Black women come with all sorts of personalities. So it's time for media to wise up and show us in all of our complexity.

I am an African-American woman of dark skin tone, and there are very specific roles that are usually given to African-American women of a darker hue. Let's start with 'Once on This Island': peasant girl. Let's go to 'The Color Purple': young girl, beaten. Let's go to 'Ragtime': Her baby's taken.

The problem with Muslim women is less that we cannot speak the language, but that no one listens to us.

None of us live single-issue lives... That is why intersectionality is a strength, not a weakness.