Petra Collins Quotes

When folks say 'identity politics' don't matter, it simply reinforces the norm of a white, middle-class, cis narrative and further marginalizes the rest of us who don't share that identity.

Creating more characters that represent historically marginalized and historically disenfranchised people in television and film is certainly important.

Creating whole departments of ethnic, gender, and other 'studies' was part of the price of academic peace. All too often, these 'studies' are about propaganda rather than serious education.

I think it was a good and necessary thing that the American upper class diversified, and that more African-Americans and Jews and Catholics (like myself) and women now share privileges and powers once reserved for Protestant white men.

Awards shows are being pushed to shed their genteel limousine liberalism and embrace the race-gender-sexual identity agenda in full.

We need to include more writers from different backgrounds and ethnicities. We need to see different experiences instead of the same people writing the same kinds of stories.

None of us live single-issue lives... That is why intersectionality is a strength, not a weakness.

If more stories are told about marginalized communities, subcultures, and minorities, the less marginalized they will be.

I think one of the most important things we can do as feminists is acknowledge that, even though we have womanhood in common, we have to start to think about the ways in which we're different, how those differences affect us, and what kinds of needs we have based on our differences.

I was the first South Asian female to do comedy videos on YouTube. But at the same time, all races face their barriers, and I've learned through YouTube, if it's not race, it will be sexism, if it's not sexism, it will be homophobia. It will always be something, and all voices should be heard.

I figure this current era of history is the one with the best chance of quality of life for a black, female, disabled, middle-aged, queer person who's most comfortable not fitting in. The odds still aren't great, mind you. But I'll take my chances with the 21st century.

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?

One motivation for the 'Soul Train' awards was the grumbling that all of us in the industry have heard about the way black music tends to be viewed as a secondary phenomenon by the other awards shows.

Identity politics are wearisome; you don't want to go on speaking for any one group as a writer.

Fault lines run along color lines in American public life, and the women's movement is no exception. Over the years, feminism has become more inclusive but there is still hard work to be done to include LGBT women and communities of color.

While everyone's experience of oppression is different and complicated and often overlapping, I really believe that if you have privilege, you need to learn as much as you can about the world beyond yourself.

It's always the minorities who aren't a part of the mainstream who define what the limits... of the majority are going to be.

We will live with racism for ever. But senses of self, senses of belonging, senses of us and of others? Those are up for grabs.

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.

There is a certain danger in thinking about diversity in its own little box, as something that is somehow separate from 'normal' comic books and comics creators.

My entire career, in fiction or nonfiction, I have reported and written about people who are not like me.

To ignore race and sex is racist and sexist.

We have to stop thinking about diversity and start thinking about inclusion. That's what you can take from August Wilson. That there are whole cultures out there living experiences exactly like yours, and their stories can be just as dynamic, sold in the foreign market, put as many butts in the seats as any Caucasian movie out there.

As a woman of color, slowly and with some coercing, the not-for-profit theaters around the country are beginning to recognize and embrace the power of our stories, but with regards to Broadway and other commercial venues, we remain very much marginalized and excluded from that larger creative conversation.

I think white women need to wake up and say, 'Not all women are white,' three times in front of the mirror.