Toni Morrison Quotes

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've always felt robbed of something by people not knowing I was a Jew.

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.'

For me, my 'X' replaced the white slave master name of 'Little' which some blue-eyed devil named Little had imposed on my parental forebears.

What I think the political correctness debate is really about is the power to be able to define. The definers want the power to name. And the defined are now taking that power away from them.

I always think - when I get mad, and people say, 'Don't be the angry black woman' - it's like, well, why not? There's so much to be angry about.

I always thought that when I got into this business that I was going to have to downplay my Asianness and downplay my queerness, which is not an easy thing for me to do.

I don't want to be 'de-ethnicised.' I hate it when people say, 'Oh I don't even think of you as a woman,' or, 'I don't even think of you as a black woman.' Well what do you think of me as then? A loaf of bread?

The marginalization of African-Americans within their own community based on sexuality is a construct that is more complex than the idea that 'blacks just hate gays.'

Asian males have not been appreciated for what they are. They have always been dissed for what they are not.

Sexism and racism and homophobia and classism are so naturalized. All these stereotypes make people think it's just normal that straight white men are getting all the breaks.

If someone tried to assimilate you for years, if your language was forbidden, if the names of your hometown were changed, what would do you but revolt.

I'm a straight white man - I have options, and I'm not blocked on a consistent basis when I wake up in the morning because of my race, sex, and orientation.

If there was an Oppression Olympics, I would win the gold medal. I'm Palestinian, Muslim, I'm female, I'm disabled, and I live in New Jersey.

I am an African-American woman of dark skin tone, and there are very specific roles that are usually given to African-American women of a darker hue. Let's start with 'Once on This Island': peasant girl. Let's go to 'The Color Purple': young girl, beaten. Let's go to 'Ragtime': Her baby's taken.

I'm a brown-skinned Indian immigrant, low-caste untouchable - I don't know how many labels you want to put on me - who's fought all his life.

I make pop music. I make music that is pretty commercial. But, at the same time, I'm a minority within a minority and it can be challenging. I feel validated about what I'm doing when I meet fellow black gay men or black gay women.

As a person of color, I feel like I'm socialized to feel like a remnant of poverty or something primitive, and I don't feel like that at all. I can be myself and be me.

Only a straight white person would have no concept of what visibility is. They've never contended with anything but visibility.

As a person of color from the South, San Francisco was the first city that really made me feel like an other.

I don't want a middle-aged white man telling me how to write my feelings. It's not gonna work for me.

Demonization of people on the basis of race, religion, sexual orientation, or other criteria leads to dehumanization. The notion that some are 'other' is a dangerous and slippery slope.

The establishment wants to connect with people who are like them, and I wasn't. I'm a black gay man from a poor working-class family. Most of the people who look like me are in prison.

Being an openly gay black man, unfortunately I've had experiences working with individuals who've tried to exploit my blackness or my gayness in a way that doesn't make me feel comfortable, or they try to manipulate me into being a caricature of myself.

Throughout college and law school, as well as in my career as a lawyer and police reform advocate, I've faced various toxic combinations of racism, sexism, and homophobia.