Kimberle Williams Crenshaw Quotes

More Asians need to be on television as a positive role model.

It's understandable why TV hasn't been diverse because a lot of TV writers are white dudes from Harvard. And white dudes from Harvard aren't going to immediately want to write about trans issues. They're not immediately going to want to write about a Filipino family.

Point-blank, there is not enough diversity in media.

When I was growing up, in the '80s and '90s, I just never really saw myself reflected in the things that I had a liking for. It makes a difference.

A lot of the time, because we don't have many Latinx scenarios on the landscape, not just in television or film and other media, we haven't gotten the chance to tell our story from our point of view.

But what I'm very interested in, whether it's writing, whether it's hosting a show, whether it's cooking food, I'm just into the discussions of identity, culture and the politics of culture.

It's not worth it, it's not about money, especially when you're dealing with a culture. It should be about elevating the idea of what we are and who we are as people in the cinema, and that kind of stuff keeps dragging us back down.

Statistics show that diversity in the media is pretty dismal. Critical voices from women and people of color are missing from many important conversations.

I come from a place where we feel like we're not represented in the national media.

I'm not naive enough to pretend that on its own cinema can capture the very soul of significant social and cultural problems.

You're going to relegate my history to a month.

I don't think there's enough breadth to the stories told about African-Americans.

Cinema is a reflection of its own society.

How often, really, do you get a Filipino story line in a show? Not very often. I can't think of any.

My work has always been controversial within certain segments of the Asian-American community. This is a community that is generally not represented well at all on the stage, in the media, etc. So on those few occasions when something comes along, everybody feels obligated to make sure that it represents his own point of view.

I definitely intend to create my own work in the future so that we don't have to keep saying, We don't have work for black women.'

If I can represent that body type of women that isn't represented so much in media, then I'd be happy to do that.

All the networks have always been willing to have ethnic people as the third or fourth lead or the best friend to the white person. But to actually let a black family or an Asian family carry a show, that's something where there hasn't really been a precedent set in terms of a real financial gain.

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

We don't want to create a literary ghetto in which black writers are only allowed to write black characters and women writers are put on 'girl books.'

When I was a little girl, there was no Variety Latino. When I was a little girl, there was no nothing. There were very few roles for people like myself.

The truth of the matter is, there were shows that depicted black characters that were on in the '90s, and they gave everybody a glimpse into the black experience. And then they disappeared.

I think cinema is a reflection of the society and whatever is being shown is because of the climate we're living in. It is relevant, topical, and surely somewhere it's impacting people who can relate to these circumstances.

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.

I grew up under the politics of my size and my skin. I grew up under the politics of the sound of my voice and a lack of agency, or a feeling of a lack of agency, and not always being able to find myself in images that were in the media.