Russell Simmons Quotes

The people who can be helping to make movies that have blacks and Latinos and women and all that - that movie doesn't come to you. Because the idea is that there's no place for black movies.

As a person of color, I was just really tired of the fact that I wasn't seeing my story in the culture.

It's not good enough to say we value diversity and then underrepresent women and minorities.

I want to see designers capitalize on a beauty that is not only white. I need them to stop acting like beautiful black and brown women do not exist.

My experience as a black woman in the industry is simply that often I was the only one in the room. Often I would be the only woman and the only person of color. Sometimes I would be one of several women but the only person of color. Sometimes I would be one of several people of color, but the only woman.

Hollywood had a history of whitewashing and not representing.

Imagine a film such as Inception with an entire cast of black people - do you think it would be successful? Would people watch it? But no one questions the fact that everyone's white. That's what we have to change.

I'm a gatekeeper, and the gatekeepers all used to be mostly old, white men.

I'm trying to appeal to the disenfranchised everybody, not just specifically gay.

For me, I want to see diversity in storytelling sources because we live in a very diverse society, and the stories are for the whole society. That's really important. For me, as a female filmmaker, when I was out on the festival circuit on 2006, I felt like such a freaking anomaly - an oddity.

Women are being welcomed into science fiction, but it's through the back door.

I'm not into the Oscar and Emmys as much as I used to be because I'm tired of looking at people who don't look like me.

Audiences want great story telling; it's why white people watch my show 'Black in America.' It's why black people watch 'Latina in America.' All of that is statistically shown and proven but it was because it was good story telling about people who were outsiders.

You must make sure that the majority of the people are not marginalized.

Every year, Hollywood is looking for that new, white leading man and new white starlet that audiences fall in love with. But they're not looking for the next Denzel Washington, Will Smith or Sidney Poitier.

There are great slender models, great tall models, Amazonian models, great busty models - my point is models of all shapes and sizes, age, ethnic background should be embraced and celebrated.

I go to castings and see several black and Asian girls, then I get to the show and look around there's just me and maybe one other coloured face.

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

'Black film,' that term allows studios to just marginalize a movie and say, 'We've made our black film. We've made our film with people of color in it,' as opposed to, 'I just feel like people of color should be in every genre.'

There are all kinds of people who continue to be largely ignored by advertisers, whose lives largely go unseen. They deserve their moment.

Television shows and movies that are all white, I can't watch them. They totally alienate me.

I wasn't able to relate to anyone on TV growing up, so I wanted to bring my own experiences to the screen.

There's a burden of representation that comes into play when there aren't enough representatives of a certain group in popular culture.

It's really maddening out there for dark-skinned actresses in terms of the opportunities we get. There's just so much talent that is being overlooked.

Speak up for the people that nobody speaks for.