Rick Famuyiwa Quotes

If we truly seek diversity in fiction, we have to let the needs of others come before our need to define ourselves as social justice allies.

I'm so disturbed when my women students behave as though they can only read women, or black students behave as though they can only read blacks, or white students behave as though they can only identify with a white writer.

With literature, sometimes a book is presented in the media as being say, a Muslim story or an African story, when essentially it's a universal story which we can all relate to it, no matter what race or social background we come from.

The only way you get to the goal of color blindness is to be color conscious along the way.

I speak to the black experience, but I am always talking about the human condition.

Human rights, race relations, gender politics, health care, and foreign policy - it's a lot to keep track of, and yet all of these things affect us in our daily lives. Making sense of everything requires meticulous unpacking of feelings, delicate navigation of social norms, and a community of love to help along the way.

I've heard people say, 'Why do you have to do a show that's called 'Black Girls Rock'?' or 'Why is there an expression called 'black girl magic'?' You know, when you say, 'Save the dolphins,' you don't mean, 'I don't like whales.' That's just not the way it works!

I am not a Somali representative. I am not a Muslim representative. I am not a millennial representative. I am not a woman representative. I am a representative who happens to have all of these marginalized identities and can understand the intersectionality of all of them in a very unique way.

Black History in 2019 and beyond is all about inclusivity.

When I was writing stories about Chinese American characters in my fiction classes, I'd get comments like, 'You should consider writing more universal stories.' But anything can happen to a Chinese American girl - just as much of the canon of English literature involves white men or women.

I wholeheartedly believe that we can't organize just as women. There has to be specific messaging and an issue prioritization based on identity groups. Because when you ask a black woman what her top priority issues are versus a white woman versus a Muslim woman versus an undocumented woman, you're going to get... different answers.

Black culture is pop culture, Black History Month is every month, and that's something they want us to forget. What better way to remember than to highlight all of our differences as a singular people across the globe?

In any marginalized community, whether people identify themselves or not affects us all.

I sort of feel like that's the most revolutionary thing we can do with our narrative for me as Black people is to show that we are just like you.

Everybody brings their thing to their criticism. I bring this wealth of opinions and feeling and knowledge about race and gender and sexuality. I feel like I have it, I may as well express it, and if it's applicable to what I'm writing about and I'm not forcing it, I should try to use it, because it's interesting. It speaks to more than some people.

I don't think you can bring the races together by joking about the differences between them. I'd rather talk about the similarities, about what's universal in their experiences.

Latinos, Asians, African-Americans, women - we're all trying to find our place in this world of cinema and television and theater. And the great thing with comedy is that most of the time, you could be orange. It doesn't matter, as long you're funny.

I love writing about black women, but if you go beyond that, we're human beings - and because we're human beings, it's universal for everybody.

Who says soul has only one colour?

Since becoming aware of the need to be inclusive, I've tried to make my stories broader and more representative of our world.

There are a lot of groups that feel a little bit strange around me, because I am inclusive.

Race prejudice can't be talked down, it must be lived down.

Feminism is rooted in racial rights and gender rights, and all of those things intersect, and to say that that's not something you can stand behind - it confuses me. I think it's a really great word.

The whole ability to look at the complexity of race and any sort of associated -ism and still find humor, that's a very interesting space.

And I'm happy to say that I'm able to find people wherever I go that are not black, not white - they're just human beings. That's where I am, where I've been and where I intend to stay.