Riz Ahmed Quotes

Art is inherently political. Even trying to make a film that has nothing to do with politics is, in and of itself, a political act.

I would say that no film is apolitical. There are politics in all films. Any film that is anchored in a society, any film that deals with humanity is necessarily political.

Like some of my other movies, 'Conquest Of The Planet Of The Apes' is also a very political film, and many critics still consider it even the best of all the Apes movies, because it conveys a series of political viewpoints.

Culturally, I have always been part of the proletariat. I lived side by side with the sons of glassblowers, fishermen and smugglers. The stories they told were shaper satires about the hypocrisy of authority and the middle classes, the two-facedness of teachers and lawyers and politicians. I was born politicized.

I like to make broader strokes with politics in my work.

It is clear from Salman Rushdie's writing that politics and literature cannot be separated. Everything is political.

My art gets called political, as opposed to my intending it to be political. I think that's something that happens with black artists or marginalized voices trying to speak truth. Because there are things in the status quo to speak out against, speaking out against them will inherently be political.

Simple peck-order bullying is only the beginning of the kind of hierarchical behavior that can lead to racism, sexism, ethnocentrism, classism, and all the other 'isms' that cause so much suffering in the world.

Every artistic expression is either influenced by or adds something to politics.

I'm the result of upbringing, class, race, gender, social prejudices, and economics. So I'm a victim again. A result.

If you see something is going wrong within politics and the world today, then some Hip Hop artist is gonna come along and get straight with it. If they think that there's a lot of racism going on then there's another Hip Hop artist who's gonna come out and speak their mind.

A lot of politics in art is just institutional critique, which, in my opinion, is not all that political.

There's always someone who's going to interpret my material as racist, but it's not. Racism comes from intent and power. A racist will tell a joke about a group of people only when they're not in the room. I'll talk about a group of people only when they're in the room.

I am from the class that has, in a sense, benefited from the status quo, but everyone still gets victimized.

I chose to camouflage my body into the environment because this way, people will pay more attention to the background's social property, and the meaning of my body disappeared in this environment as an individual.

This land is your land and this land is my land, sure, but the world is run by those that never listen to music anyway.

Hip hop music is important precisely because it sheds light on contemporary politics, history, and race. At its best, hip hop gives voice to marginal black youth we are not used to hearing from on such topics.

If you don't look like the ruling class, bring your inhaler.

And, for an instant, she stared directly into those soft blue eyes and knew, with an instinctive mammalian certainty, that the exceedingly rich were no longer even remotely human.

I don't understand how any good art could fail to be political.

Sociological critics are waste makers.

All art is political in the sense that it serves someone's politics.

All literatures can have political uses and misuses. Sometimes politics can enhance, sometimes it can get in the way of imaginative literature...

Philosophers are men hired by the well-to-do to prove that everything is all right.

Mrs. Hoover has offered to the South and to the nation an arrogant insult yesterday.