Michelle Obama Quotes

I haven't done years of diversity training, so sometimes I say things which are probably tactless, and I don't mean to, to be honest, I don't mean to do that.

You make real progress when somebody is honest enough to say something that's really uncomfortable. Of course when you're a candidate's wife and when you're first lady and the first African-American first lady to boot, that is very, very hard to do.

That thing, multiculturalism, has basically taken over the curriculum, or what is taught in the public school system.

Absolutely the greatest challenges in dealing with discrimination are with the larger group who needs to consider how they think and act in everyday life. It remains the possibility of the majority to accept the call to change.

Most of my diversity conversations are had with the majority population, because frankly, those people are the people who have the most influence over everybody's career.

I don't think we're politically correct when we're private. I don't know what 'politically correct' means.

I don't want to ever tell a stereotype joke for the sake of it. I'm going to tell the story that I feel is true.

I think the issues around diversity of all kinds are really a huge problem in the startup world.

Of course, when people work together, there can be tension and disagreement. But policing informal behavior makes it hard for people to speak freely for fear they will say the wrong thing. Even self-aware individuals can doubt their judgement and start to rely on the diversity trainer to judge if something is offensive.

Because when you have all white men in the writers' room trying to tell the perspective of cultural appropriation or what it's like to be black or Asian in America and not necessarily knowing what it's like, that's when everything gets mixed up.

The vast majority of our teachers, our principals and our PTAs are well informed and well meaning, but even those with the best intentions can benefit from cultural competency training.

What I do used to be called 'diversity training,' then 'cultural competency' and now, 'anti-racism.' These terms are really useful for periods of time, but then they get coopted, and people build all this baggage around them, and you have to come up with new terms, or else people won't engage.

I'm a big fan of not letting the audience of off the hook, as they say. I like it when things feel real, and that's oftentimes not comfortable.

All of them fans in love with me 'cause I say what's real. So I could never give a f-ck how a hater feel.

What we want is to be real. Let us not appear to be more than we are. Don't let us put on any cant, any assumed humility, but let us be real; that is the delight of God. God wants us to be real men and women, and if we profess to be what we are not, God knows all about us. God hates sham.

In the end, as any successful teacher will tell you, you can only teach the things that you are. If we practice racism then it is racism we teach.

Acting is, to me now, artificial. Seeing people suffer is real. It couldn't be more real. Some people don't like to look at it in the face because it's painful. But if nobody does, then nothing gets done.

Racist, sexist, and homophobic thoughts cannot, alas, be abolished by fiat but only by the time-honored methods of persuasion, education and exposure to the other guy's-or excuse me, woman's-point of view.

If the world ever advances beyond what it is today, it must be led by men who express their real opinions.

That is an extremely important role: how white brothers and sisters laterally spread knowledge, insight, and challenge in a way that white brothers and sisters will not hear it from a person like me, necessarily.

I think diversity is very key to anybody's resume, and also for your mental well-being.

I don't mind the job of saying to white people, "Yes, this is what I think you need to know, this is what I think you've been missing." And it's my job to educate white folks every day.

To understand any plea for further consideration of a group you don't know anything about to be some form of, quote, political correctness. These things are bubbling right under us.

I would hate to say as a non-African-American person that it would be wrong for a black person to direct white people in a movie. Wouldn't that be awful of me to say that? The only sympathizing thing I might say for people that want to [grumble] is that a filmmaker should have an understanding for the place where the people you're portraying are coming from.

Don't be color blind, be color brave. Embrace diversity as a competitive advantage.