Zawe Ashton Quotes

I think the bottom of the totem pole is African-American women, or women of colour. I think they get the least opportunities in Hollywood.

Young Black actresses were not necessarily given the space in Hollywood to fully see ourselves.

The sad reality of it is, as black artists in the industry, we still have to work 10 times harder to get our voices out there.

In the industry, artists of of color struggle the most. Caucasian artists have really solidified themselves in the industry, and with African Americans now we see directors and producers who vow to only produce work that shines a light on African American artists. But everybody in the middle gets lost.

Even in today's opera world, the position of the black tenor is problematic.

We are women. We are a subject people who have inherited an alien culture.

If what I read doesn't reflect my life - whether I'm gay or Latino or on welfare - doesn't that really mean that my life is not valuable?

I don't have one role that I want to play. I guess... I want to be a producer. I want to be an activist. I want to be proactive in bringing about work for men, women, boys, girls, everybody who is good at what they do and deserve a shot at it.

When you're told that as a filmmaker of colour, the stories you want to tell aren't commercial enough, then you start thinking, 'I'm going to tell them anyway.'

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

Black women, whose experience is unique, are seldom recognized as a particular social-cultural entity and are seldom thought to be important enough for serious scholarly consideration.

As an actor, I have casting issues. I'm a minority. I don't have trouble making a living, but as far as being on the food chain of the pecking order of actors, I'm not at the top of it. With the jobs that I do, there are always control issues with directors and producers.

It is frustrating to be a Black woman in the entertainment industry.

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.

I think it's worth putting energy into affirmative action in terms of having diversity in positions of power because the door was shut for so long.

I never saw a consistent through-line of employment for black actresses. I was like, 'How are they supporting themselves?'

The color and the diversity dies out, and it gets whiter and whiter, and that's in any field. There is also this idea that there can only be one gay person or there can only be one Asian-American woman in the office, and so it also perpetuates itself where we are isolated, especially the more successful we get.

There are so few roles out there. And even if it is a film that could be led by a black actress, how many times is that film going to get funded? Let's just be real. But it's not just black people. It's Asians, it's Hispanic people if you're not Salma Hayek. It's hard. It's hard to get films funded.

Black women's intersectional experiences of racism and sexism have been a central but forgotten dynamic in the unfolding of feminist and antiracist agendas.

As a black woman of trans experience, my position in this society leaves me really no choice but to stand for the intersectional identities I hold.

I was born in 1947, and my generation, like its predecessors, was taught that since our achievements received little notice or credit from white America, we were not to discuss our faults, lapses, or uncertainties in public.

I think as soon as you're a woman, or any minority doing something, you automatically become a representative for it, and I think a lot of brilliant women's interviews are being wasted on talking about what it's like being a woman.

You can never have enough reinforcements, resources for black women to thrive in the world. The topic has been addressed a million times before, but it will never end because what we're up against keeps morphing, and we have to figure out how to beat it.

As an activist, organizer, Palestinian, and a Muslim-American woman, I have faced many obstacles in the industry I work in. I often have to fight for my seat and representation for the communities I represent.

Trans talent is not even making it into the audition room, and we're not even being afforded the opportunity to tell our own stories. I feel that is problematic.