Courtney A. Kemp Quotes

I've never been a person that has had fear of, like, 'Oh, I don't want to be the poster child for all black lesbian women.' I don't know. I want to be someone in the public eye that they can be proud of.

Being a black woman, I've often felt I've been judged by my sex and my race, and I have always known that it shouldn't hamper me.

After feminism, I suddenly realised: not everyone has to live the same way. Imagine that!

But, yeah, as far as Asian Americans go, I hope they know they can look at me and see that they can do music on their own, within a band or just on their own, and not feel like there's any barriers. I've never felt any particular barriers myself, being who I am.

I can honestly say I've never thought for a second about whether a character reflects poorly on any group. All that matters to me is that the character is true to my belief in who he or she is.

The girl next door isn't necessarily blonde and blue-eyed anymore. So I don't feel like I need to morph into that all-American thing.

Just by the nature of making the choice to be true to who I am, I'm political. Sometimes that's all you need to do: Show up and be black, gay and Christian in America and actually say it out loud. And refuse to let anything or anybody take that away from you.

I'm Italian and Spanish and Jewish. I'm 100 different things meshed into one. I think that shows girls that uniqueness is beautiful. They can look at me on a magazine cover and see me in a movie and say that they have someone they can relate to.

I'm pleased to be a part of a 'new breed' of models who perhaps don't exactly fit the status quo.

I just want different narratives for people of color, especially women of color. I just want something that's different. I don't want us to be put in a box. I want it to be kind of a redefinition of who were are. If I can even achieve that in a tiny way, I'll be good. I'll be good.

Being in the space that I am as a writer, and just as a black dude in America, there's this push to be cool or be what you're expected to be. There's a need for a song that puts that in perspective. I think that's an important thing for young children to hear growing up.

I am not the candidate of Black America, although I am black and proud. I am not the candidate of the woman's movement of this country, although I am a woman and I am equally proud of that.

In Hollywood, there is one dominant voice. It is a white, male, straight gaze. When I talk about positive portrayals of black people and women, I'm saying complexity. I'm not saying goody-two-shoes, everything's okay. No. The positive view of me is to see me as I am: the 'good,' the 'bad,' the gray. That is a positive portrayal.

All black women aren't sassy, loud, difficult, or subservient. We are, in fact, very complex and very diverse, living very complex and diverse lives. That point cannot be made enough.

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!

Now, there doesn't have to necessarily be a white man in the lead role. That's the way forward. That's diversity. It's cool if an Indian is playing the lead role in a Hollywood project, and we should be proud of this.

We all had to dodge the idea we were spokespeople for our races. Like, 'Hey, it's the Mexican Guy! The Filipino! The Chick!' We've always stood up to it and said, 'Fine, bring it on and we'll show you how we rock.'

Being a young actor in the industry, I had a lot of people who strongly advised me to stay quiet. That was hard to live with. But I've never played a gay role before, and I didn't want to be limited by some strange perception.

I wrote 'Redefining Realness' because not enough of our stories are being told, and I believe we need stories that reflect us so we don't feel so isolated in our apparent 'difference.'

'Essence' is political. I grew up on the magazine, looking at the covers. Seeing ourselves on the cover is political.

Whether you're a woman, a transwoman, a person of color, I feel like Instagram is really important for the creation and framing of the self.

As a gay black man, it's important to me to show up - that I'm able to show up as my whole self, in every space that I'm in, because that's how I'm able to be the most true to who I am.

We're moving away from the one-dimensional nature for women. It used to be that you were known for one thing - a cultural thing, the way you walk, talk or look. Now everybody is allowed to be a layer cake.

One thing we do, to be inclusive, is that when we shoot campaigns, we ensure to do so with models of different body types, skin colors and with those hailing from different cultures.

People are deeply interested in rewriting the established narratives and challenging what we see as the norm in every way. We want to see a new definition of beauty and sexy. We want to see different people look vulnerable and show strength and redefine what it means to be strong.