Roxane Gay Quotes

I feel a responsibility to continue creating complex roles for black women, especially young black women.

I take the responsibility of playing another ethnicity very, very seriously, and I promise myself and those people that I will represent them with as much dignity and integrity as I can muster.

Once there are more African Americans and Asian Americans behind the scenes as producers, writers, and directors, I think more inclusive casting will happen.

It's great we have a female Thor. It's great we have a black Captain America. But those are just optics; it's optics of change... Unless you have the structural diversity, the structural change behind the scenes - more women, more people of color actually calling the shots and editing these books - those optics won't last.

I've done movies for certain reasons; I did 'Anaconda' because the black man lives. Simple. The black man isn't dead in the first three pages, like Jurassic Park. It's like, 'The black man kills the snake with a Latino girl? Damn! I got to do this.'

I've specifically decided to say no to projects that weren't advancing Latinos, that weren't showing us in a positive light, roles that were gratuitous and spreading untruths.

If you only think of me during Black History Month, I must be failing as an educator and as an astrophysicist.

I sense a kind of fear of writing black or Asian characters from non-ethnic writers, who perhaps feel that they don't know the culture and therefore can't write about it. By and large, if there's an Asian character, I might get a call. But if the character is called 'Philip,' the chances are I won't.

People of color and women are increasingly being shown on-screen. For things to be whitewashed just doesn't make sense.

Historically, diversity has been a real issue for superhero comics - so we need to do something about it, crafting strong, modern heroes for a modern audience.

When I do a picture and it's 90% black, like 'Bird,' I use 90% black people.

Simultaneously, the movie business now experiments with a colorblind approach to casting.

The challenge facing America in the next century will be the shaping, at long last, of a truly common public culture, one responsive to the long silenced cultures of color.

In England, you feel like a member of the revolutionary guard the minute you even mention race. But I do think that the OscarsSoWhite phenomenon will have to reflect back on England. What people are essentially saying is that they want to see more diverse stories. It's not about putting three black people in the back of the shot.

I have lots of hopes for black actors in general, whether they be on TV or on stage or in movies, and that is that we move beyond the tokenism of what it means to be black in a particular set of circumstances.

I think as more women are in positions of power, more people of color are in positions of power, the stories become more inclusive; the casts become more inclusive.

The studios gotta start making more stuff where black folks get quality stuff. But I can't trip about that because I've been making movies for 35 years, and I've played everything from an old lady to a donkey, so I can't be on here talking about, 'They don't give us enough roles' and diversity.

I bring something to the table as a woman; I bring something to the table as a woman of color.

That's what I loved about 'Community' - we had one of the most diverse casts on TV, but we didn't emphasize culture. And yet, we also didn't run away from it.

There's racist casting, and there is normal casting. Normal casting, to me, is a process that strives for representation and, in many cases, strives to simply portray the world as it actually is instead of as falsely non-inclusive. And sadly, sometimes that involves removing the whitewash that exists on history.

It's important to tell the story you're telling in the right way, which might involve black people or people of whatever heritage or ethnicity - or it might not.

There's a lack of diversity amongst executives in the position of greenlighting a film who feel that their stories are being told. If there's a diversity at the executive level, then we'll have diversity of the storytelling process.

When I speak of diversity, I don't mean replacement of white comics. I don't mean acceptance by white comics. We comics who weren't born into the white guy paradigm of 'funny' don't need a handout. We don't need a PC push. We don't need 'a look.'

I get that people want more diversity in TV and film, and I stand by that. I stand in solidarity with better diversity in TV shows, especially for Asian actors. I agree with that 100 per cent.

I want to bring awareness to the lack of diversity in ballet, and feel like that's a large part of my purpose.