Matt Besser Quotes

Our challenge is this sport needs to be more diverse throughout its makeup of stakeholders, participants, and fans. We're doing a number of things from a multicultural standpoint on and off the track to achieve that. Over time, that's going to be a big opportunity for NASCAR.

In the long run, we will need many more African-American, Latino, and Native American leaders, and leaders from low-income communities, who can bring additional insight and a deeply grounded sense of urgency, and who are the most likely to inspire the necessary trust and engagement among students' parents and community leaders.

Our work should be a reflection of society, and if you're not concerned with including all of society, then I don't really know what you're doing making art in the first place.

Diversity matters. You want your city departments to look like the city.

I hope to see more programming, more shows, more actors of mixed ethnicity, more young kids of mixed ethnicity choosing to be in the entertainment industry.

Historically, diversity has been a real issue for superhero comics - so we need to do something about it, crafting strong, modern heroes for a modern audience.

Many theaters are tackling the multifaceted work of black writers - established and emerging. Now the next step is for them to bring in audiences of color and continue to go out to our community and create a continuous connection that extends beyond the one black show in the season.

The world we live in is like a Benetton ad. It's changed, and we have to appeal to a broader audience. You want younger kids of every race to be able to see themselves in the movie.

Diversity needs to operate on every level. It's great that the Oscars have highlighted it, but black actors getting nominated shouldn't be the only result. There's so much more that needs to be done.

It's important to tell the story you're telling in the right way, which might involve black people or people of whatever heritage or ethnicity - or it might not.

Making a movie with people of all different ethnicity, all different skin color and different backgrounds, meant that the movie can literally play all around the world. It's not just a blanket whitewash film like most Hollywood films tend to be.

From casting to hiring to awards races like the Emmys, taking active steps toward inclusion will make for richer stories, a stronger democracy, and a better world.

We want to make tennis look like America when it comes to cultural backgrounds.

I think the crux of this urgent and real conversation about representation and diversity in art-making and storytelling both behind and in front of the camera ultimately has to do with simply seeing more human perspectives.

I'm just trying to stretch the public space wider and make it more open so that a wider variety of people and faces and stories and perspectives and also expertise can come through. So everything that I do rests on that, trying to support on other voices.

The New York City police department is more representative of the city it serves than most law firms, university faculties, and media companies.

I want to bring my color and background to the table because it makes life - and entertainment - more interesting.

As it's related to publishing, I think magazines really benefit from having a staff with a range of different perspectives and cultural references so that any reader can feel like there is someone on the masthead they can relate to, someone they can trust to speak up for them. It's great to see that idea being embraced more and more.

I can't believe that I'm sitting in meetings with Steven Spielberg, Tom Hanks, and Annette Bening. I want to take on that responsibility to represent all the Rogers out there who don't have a seat at the table. People of colour were not at the table, and now I am there, I want to change things.

I feel like if Hollywood can stretch for inclusion and intersectionality, and being intentional with its intersectionality, that that can ripple out past Hollywood into whatever industry and kind of affect society as a whole.

We decided a number of years ago we could do a better job at diversity. It was going to be one of the growth areas available to us. There are a variety of initiatives to create more awareness with African-Americans and Hispanics and anyone else.

You cannot possibly be reaching the needs of your consumers when the makeup of your company is not reflective of the community you serve.

I'm not asking for there to be all black writer's rooms or all Asian writer's rooms, or all white - I want them all to be diverse. When it's diverse, you're going to have a completely different dynamic. Everybody feels othered. Nobody feels like they've got the upper hand.

Working with BET always provides a reminder of why I began to do this work. It is essential that we have platforms where we can discuss our politics, our challenges, and our culture through our respective lenses.

Diversity in books is a civil rights frontier.