Ava DuVernay Quotes

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

That's just like America. It's made up of lots of different people. We're all different colors, different ages, we do different jobs -- but it takes all of us black people, white people, brown people, men and women, young and old, working in the factories, working in the fields, working in offices, working in stores -- it takes a lot of different kinds of people to get the job done for America.

Diversity for diversity's sake is nothing more than affirmative action and can make no claim to being part of America's greatness.

For me, diversity whether you think of it as race or gender, it's not a trend, it's a human movement, it's a human feeling, it's a human desire.

We need diversity in our population to make it work.

I think we're at a really rich and fertile time in the zeitgeist about paying attention to diversity of all kinds - racial diversity, gender diversity, making room for a continuum that is more inclusive.

Katherine Johnson never complained, it just was what it was. She just said, "I just wanted to go to work and do my numbers." And she stopped right there. I think about that as a Black woman in Hollywood when I'm asked about diversity. I hate when people say diversity because the first thing you jump to is Black and white. When you talk about diversity, you're talking about women being hired in front of and behind the camera. You are talking about people with disabilities, the LGBTQ community...so I hate when people think about diversity.

In our American cities, we need all kinds of diversity.

The beauty of being black in American society is that black has always been an inclusive definition. White has always been an exclusive definition. I think one of the challenges for white people is to figure out how to have a more inclusive picture of who their families are, of who they are.

Diversity is so important for me, particularly in the United States Senate, and it's been important to every job that I've held. Whether you're in government or the private sector, we should be just as diverse as the community that we represent.

I think that America is more diverse than ever before, and is continuing to become more diverse, and our content should and is reflecting that.

We can think of solutions in various theoretical ways, but it's not so on the ground. If they don't have a reference that helps them to belong, then they will end up excluding, and through that they get to feel that they belong on the basis of some narrow identity, language or color.

For anybody whose family, you know, probably came from somewhere else a few generations to say, OK, but now we're going to put up the drawbridge and not let anybody else in, I don't think that's in accord with the values of America.

I feel that our stories are cross culturally irrelevant, and I'm a member if a larger community of people who have no boundaries in terms of color or in terms of how I look at other people and their stories.

I want to see an open and tolerant society here in the United Kingdom, I want to see a country that works for everyone whatever their background.

Greater diversity drives better business results.

I think that is something that I always like in my work - the sense of inclusion rather than the sense of otherness.

I applaud what the Oscars are doing to promote diversity. I think it's great.

The beautiful thing about having grown up in Brooklyn is, because of the rich cultural and racial diversity there, no one seemed to give too much thought to where I fit on the racial spectrum. But there were times when I would run up against someone who was interested in figuring out what race was. That would come as a surprise, and in some cases, like a slap in the face.

We are rarely able to interact only with folks like ourselves, who think as we do. No matter how much some of us deny this reality and long for the safety and familiarity of sameness, inclusive ways of knowing and living offer us the only true way to emancipate ourselves from the divisions that limit our minds and imaginations.

Our business,The Producers Guild, has a good record in some areas, and a bad record in others. There are many well-intentioned people trying to change things. The Producers Guild has been committed to this for years now, and I think personally does more than any other guild to give opportunities to people who come from outside of, I guess you'd call it, the expected avenues for advancement.

I have a great deal of respect for the craft, I don't know how much respect it has for me. But it's a precision process. Doing it on stage would be, I think, terrifying. Doing it on film has its own difficulties, because film is not conducive to spontaneity. You might have a run through and get a few chuckles at eight o'clock in the morning, but you don't keep laughing at the same thing all day long.

I think my favourite memory from filming 'Jurassic World' would just be a compilation of me running through the jungle in heels, and just how absurd that really was. That that actually happened.

If you're ever feeling a lack of middle-aged white men, just pop into the Capitol. Not so much the House of Representatives, which has a bit more color and texture, but the Senate -- jeez. Yes, let's have more testosterone running the country. Maximum Ride, School's Out--Forever

We all should know that diversity makes for a rich tapestry, and we must understand that all the threads of the tapestry are equal in value no matter what their color.