Thomas Chatterton Williams Quotes

'Do the Right Thing' has been a big influence on me. I saw it when it first came out in 1989. I was about 18, and it blew me away on many levels - I had never seen anything like it before.

I'm a huge Spike Lee fan. I saw 'Do The Right Thing' twice in the same night when it first came out and had long conversations with all my friends about the issues in it.

No one will treat with indifference the principle of race. It is the key of history.

Race affects everything that I do, and everything that I create speaks to intersectionality.

What's interesting when you see 'Black Panther' is you realize it couldn't have been directed by anybody else but Ryan Coogler. It's a great adventure movie, and it works on all those different levels as entertainment, but it has this kind of cultural through-line that is so specific that it makes it universal.

I tend to gravitate toward gender- and race-related stories.

I think 'In The Heat Of The Night' was one of the most influential films on me. Looking back now, I can see how influential it was on my screenwriting because here you have what looks to be a crime procedural, and it's actually a study in race and loneliness, and a perception of an era.

When folks say 'identity politics' don't matter, it simply reinforces the norm of a white, middle-class, cis narrative and further marginalizes the rest of us who don't share that identity.

My wish is to humanize history.

Telling me that I’m obsessed with talking about racism in America is like telling me I’m obsessed with swimming when I’m drowning.

I feel like, all things aside, it's a really great time to be a woman. And I don't want to hear stories from, like, white dudes anymore. Like, not really. I want to hear stories from women.

When feminism does not explicitly oppose racism, and when anti-racism does not incorporate opposition to patriarchy, race and gender politics often end up being antagonistic to each other, and both interests lose.

It occurred to me that by naming the film itself 'Dear White People,' I could tap into the burgeoning meme culture as well as make a meta-commentary about the controversies within the film.

I think being collaborative is definitely more natural for people who are minorities in any sense - so people who aren't, like, white male artists - because we don't have the privilege to create art and work alone, usually.

Creating more characters that represent historically marginalized and historically disenfranchised people in television and film is certainly important.

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?

I think when people talk about race relations in America, they talk about African-American and white people. Asians are not often brought into the conversation. But there's a historical legacy of issues between them. It's hard to be like, 'What about us?' But we are a little underrepresented.

We need to include more writers from different backgrounds and ethnicities. We need to see different experiences instead of the same people writing the same kinds of stories.

I'd be lying if I did not say that being a woman of colour is something I am always mindful or aware of.

I feel like being vocal on social media, especially working in an industry that is very Eurocentric.

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

There's a lot of hip-hop that's oriented toward a progressive view of America because it's oriented toward a civil rights progress and a critique of the power structure.

I lament that Paris can be a threatening space for Jews, Roma, Africans and Arabs, but the truth is, as a black American, I've never felt safer or less harassed anywhere.

As a black man working in the business, it's a challenge sometimes to get some of these things and these stories told when they don't quite fit in a box or convention of what people expect of you or what you should be telling.

America is built on the labors of the oppressed.