Roxane Gay Quotes

There are people with an explicit political bent complaining about people having political agendas while nominating stories with political agendas. Is it political to try to be diverse? Is it political to try to imagine a non-heteronormative society? Yes, because it involves politics. But how do they expect us to not write about our lives?

I definitely think the beauty industry is wising up. We are seeing a lot more representation and different people.

'13 Reasons Why' includes LGBTQ people and people of color in stories without making it about that. They're just living, breathing, human beings who happen to be different from the white, cis, straight norm.

One of the most difficult parts of 'The Trans List' was coming up with a list of 11 people. For me, what was important was to ensure that we were as diverse as possible across a lot of different intersections.

The rainbow is a part of nature, and you have to be in the right place to see it. It's beautiful, all of the colors, even the colors you can't see. That really fit us as a people because we are all of the colors. Our sexuality is all of the colors. We are all the genders, races, and ages.

I think about a young person who is sitting at home, 13 or 14, a person of color, possibly questioning their sexuality, and watching Dr. Hugh Culber and saying, 'I'm a part of an ideal future that we could work towards.' We're planting seeds in the minds of young people to say, 'Your possibilities are limitless.'

That's a goal of mine and the sport. To become more diverse and change the demographic, bring in a new face.

I've had lots of people say, 'Oh, Franchesca's content is just for white people.' But I try to talk about identity in a way that's accessible to lots of people and is not a pointed finger.

The most amazing thing for me is when I open up a magazine and I see someone I could be friends with and looks, maybe, slightly like me. And I think that's the same with young girls. Because there needs to be diversity.

The absence on the panel of anyone who could become pregnant accidentally or discover her salary was five thousand dollars a yearless than that of her male counterpart meant there was a hole in the consciousness of the committee that empathy, however welcome, could not entirely fill.

I'm hoping my play opens up conversations, I hope it makes people question textbooks, I hope it makes #OscarsSoWhite and #HollywoodSoWhite question things. I hope my play sparks conversation between Latin kids and Latin parents and people start doing their own due diligence as well, I think it's everyone's responsibility.

If I can mean to people - if I can symbolize the ability to pursue gender equality, racial equality, and to be truthful about our experiences, then, absolutely, that's what I want to be.

Historically it has been a touchy subject, especially in the south where I am from, people don't really talk about it. If they do talk about it, it is often talked about negatively. Nowadays in light of the Black Lives Matter movement I think people should pay attention to these lives also. I think the Black community will really embrace the film [Moonlight]. It is about us. It is real.

You need Black [people] sometimes to understand things about Black culture.

This moment is so much bigger than me. It's for every nameless, faceless woman of colour that now has a chance because this door tonight has been opened.

We will reflect the country we aspire to govern, and the sound of modern Britain's is a complex harmony, not a male voice choir.

It doesn't matter who you are. Everyone has something to offer the movement of justice

I enjoy that the most powerful person in Hollywood is indeed a Black woman in Oprah Winfrey. I'm hoping to just transcend beyond that.

It's funny, everywhere I go some people ask me whether it's going to be a Latino breakthrough, some people ask me whether it's going to be a female breakthrough, and then I'm reminded that five years ago we didn't even know Barack Obama's name.

The way people are responding to [Moonlight movie] is something we never anticipated. We knew it was good but it is so diverse. The way people are reacting shows me that everyone sees themselves in it. That is groundbreaking. Similarly people come up some older people that it is not their story but are just crying in our arms after a screening. They know what it was like to be bullied or struggled with their own identity trying to figure out who they are. It has really caught people's imaginations.

I think if you look at Hollywood as a whole and the type of content that they put out over the years, it's pretty homogeneous, right? They haven't done a really deep dive into a lot of stories of people of color. I don't want to say that there haven't been attempts, and there has been some great product that has come out over the years, but I think in 2016, we're in a world of struggle. It's not just about race, it's also about the LGBT community too and others.

It's time for people to see us, people of colour, for what we really are: complicated.

Whiteness is not the default in my fiction.

You don't bring in a gay character as a way of commenting on gay issues. You have one there because he's real, and that's his life, no less so than your life is yours.

First and foremost, I want people to have a good read, because I want everything I write to entertain people. There are always different layers to the story, though, so if you want to think about social justice, or sexism or racism or homophobia, or really drill down into why the world is a better place when the police force looks like the people they are policing, then that's there, too.