Gene Luen Yang Quotes

I felt pretty good growing up. I didn't feel a lot of prejudice or racism. But I do remember, if there was going to be a movie or a television show with Asian characters, I would go out of my way to avoid them, because they portrayed all Asians as either ridiculously good or ridiculously bad; you know, the whole Charlie Chan-Fu Manchu thing.

There are still plenty of movie people peddling black stereotypes. I guess Tyler Perry's probably the most massively successful.

I hate the way they portray us in the media. If you see a black family it says they're looting, if you see a white family it says they're looking for food.

The farther away you writers stay, the better I like it. You know why? Because you're trying to create a bad image of me... you do it because I'm black and Puerto Rican, but I'm proud to be Puerto Rican.

I'm not even Indian-American: I'm Indian-Indian. Everybody expected me to have henna and a nose pin and talk in an accent like Apu from 'The Simpsons.' I was nervous because I wasn't sure if America was ready for a lead that looked like me.

In Australia, there just weren't strong roles for actors of colour. I was often being asked to turn up for commercials with a ghetto blaster on my shoulder. I thought, 'Are we in the '60s?'

I think that show will go down in history... people will scratch their heads and say 'How did this ever get on the air?' I mean, they finally have a planet that's populated with a black race and then they present them as savage warriors, and the men want the white girl!

I knew what it was to be uncomfortable in a movie theater watching unfolding on the screen images of myself - not me, but black people - that were uncomfortable.

People would write me hate letters. How dare I try to represent Hispanics when I was so white? I tried to make them see it was racism.

It's no surprise that White people say things when they are together about Black people.

I do not expect the white media to create positive black male images.

In the early 1940s, as a young teenager, I was utterly appalled by the racist and jingoist hysteria of the anti-Japanese propaganda. The Germans were evil, but treated with some respect: They were, after all, blond Aryan types, just like our imaginary self-image. Japanese were mere vermin, to be crushed like ants.

I have been so great in boxing they had to create an image like Rocky, a white image on the screen, to counteract my image in the ring. America has to have its white images, no matter where it gets them. Jesus, Wonder Woman, Tarzan and Rocky.

There's so much material out there that's unnecessarily racist. It takes a shot at what is 'urban' or demonstrates blackness with some sassy, neck-jiving character that's not even relevant to the plot. I see it time and time again, and it doesn't move the story forward. It just kind of cryogenically freezes us in this old racial paradigm.

Hockey is a sport for white men. Basketball is a sport for black men. Golf is a sport for white men dressed like black pimps.

I actually spoke to one of the heads of a studio, and he said I confuse middle America. Basically, when they see a black person, they see athlete, they see rapper, or they see criminal or something like that. And then when they hear a British accent, they hear posh, so they hear lawyer or doctor.

I do not want to name any individual names, but I felt like when I was working in Hollywood, there were some fellow colleagues of mine who didn't even look me in the eyes because I was Asian.

If you're going to make black movies only about black people, that's as bad as white movies only about white people.

Let's face it: there's still a certain amount of racism in human beings, so that shows up in Hollywood.

If Adam Sandler does a bad movie, he doesn't bring down the whole white race. But if Tyler Perry does, it's like, 'See what you guys do?' and that type of thing.

Chris Nolan can put Batman in full body armor, have him drive a car that looks likes a tank, and make him political, and everyone says, 'Oh, that's OK.' But try making him Filipino, and everyone gets mad.

There's a lot of other rappers that aren't what they claim to be, and they get a pass because they're black.

There's a big difference between being racist and racially insensitive.

Hollywood had a history of whitewashing and not representing.

I think that for the most part, black people specifically have sort of been used as props in TV shows as a way to move story along or as a way to make things more entertaining.