Jo Koy Quotes

You don't have to treat people differently. You may be living a different lifestyle, but the person living that different lifestyle still can relate to anybody and have the same amazing personality of the guy from North Philly.

I've found that the common humanity of people is the most relatable thing, and even if your stories are very specific about a different place, if you have a relatable core of humanity, people will go along with it.

When people see Barack Obama, they don't necessarily see an African-American president. They see someone who is a child of immigrants. They see someone whose family has worked hard and struggled. And they see many similarities between themselves and Barack Obama.

I've always taken pride to be the white guy that can talk to the black people, that can refer to them truly as a brother from a different mother.

For me, ancestry is just one thing that connects us to people, and feeling connected to other people is generally a good thing, as long as one kind of connection does not have primacy over all the others. Heredity, race and nationhood are not the best criteria by which to judge our fellow humans.

Perhaps travel cannot prevent bigotry, but by demonstrating that all peoples cry, laugh, eat, worry, and die, it can introduce the idea that if we try and understand each other, we may even become friends.

My varied listening palette is all-inclusive of all walks of life. No one individual is exempt from the human experience, so it is that intangible that is a universal truth. In that regard, I've had success in encapsulating something cosmic.

Depending on the story that you're telling, you can be relatable to everybody or nobody. I try and tell everybody's story.

I have tried to be more relatable, but I won't be relatable to everybody.

I definitely have had friendships and moments with people from different backgrounds and in different stages of their lives.

You don't ask people about the immigration policies of the U.K. or their country's agricultural policy. Instead, you talk to them about the meal they're eating or their family, and from that you get the sense of another human being, someone we can all relate to.

I feel like I'm able to relate to all races of people because when you learn to tap into the raw emotion of a person, that goes past color.

That's what was so amazing about 'Mulan.' Here is this story with all Chinese characters, and yet so many people related to her character and loved the story. So I really think as long as you have a good story that relates to a lot of people, it doesn't matter what ethnicity it is.

Diversity ... like anything worth having ... requires effort. Effort to learn about and respect difference, to be compassionate with one another, to cherish our own identity ... and to accept unconditionally the same in all others.

In order to have a large number of values in common, all members of the group must have an equitable opportunity to receive and to take from others. Members must be able to accept each other’s ideas and must be able to compromise. There must be a large variety of shared undertakings and experiences. Otherwise, the influences … educate some into masters, educate others into slaves.

Audiences want to feel represented, want to be able to empathize with the characters and the stories they are seeing on the screen.

There are folks who now know black families - like the Johnsons on 'Black-ish' or the folks on 'Modern Family.' They become part of who you are. You share their pains. You understand their fears. They make you laugh, and they change how you see the world.

I'm not saying that I'm on some crusade to change people's minds. I'm just doing what I do. I'm a comedian, I'm trying to be funny... I think when they see a comedy show with an Iranian and an Egyptian and two Palestinians, I think they go, 'Oh wow, these guys are just like us.'

It's cool to be able to relate to people who aren't necessarily from the same way of life as me or don't even maybe know what I'm talking about in some of my songs. It's just cool that music has that ability to do that.

As for my 'real life,' yes, I do have friends who are different from me, and I find it refreshing being around them.

Most people think they don't have anything to relate to a drag queen, but shockingly there's a lot we can talk about.

I think no matter where you're from, you're going to be laughing about stuff going on around you.

The greatest tragedy for any human being is going through their entire lives believing the only perspective that matters is their own.

A lot of kids can't identify with the things I've done and where I'm from and who I am as an individual. That's why I've tried to be a person and live my life in a way that can be identified by all cultures.

I speak from a black woman's perspective, and that's a specific perspective, but sometimes there are things I want to be understood by folks who may not have an entryway into that concept, so I have to think about how I can open the space to bring those people in. And that does require balance.