Roger Ross Williams Quotes

I think that if we really want to break it down, that non-black filmmakers have had many, many years and many, many opportunities to tell many, many stories about themselves, and black filmmakers have not had as many years, as many opportunities, as many films to explore the nuances of our reality.

I go to castings and see several black and Asian girls, then I get to the show and look around there's just me and maybe one other coloured face.

The mayor’s administration and staff is like the Rocky Mountains. There higher up it gets, the whiter it gets.

In television and the movie business, the people who are promoted and the people who are mentored always look like the white guys.

It's kind of heartbreaking when I talk about it now, I still get very moved by the lack of opportunities that were available to myself and to the very few others who were Hispanic young actresses.

When it comes to African Americans and African American actors, Hollywood has always felt that if you can make us laugh, that's fine, but we don't need to see you do a 'Schindler's List,' where there's no jokes or music or comedic through-line.

Every year, Hollywood is looking for that new, white leading man and new white starlet that audiences fall in love with. But they're not looking for the next Denzel Washington, Will Smith or Sidney Poitier.

We're told that independent film lovers... folks that are used to watching art house films, won't come out and see a film with black people in it - I've been told that in rooms, big rooms, studio rooms, and I know that's not true.

... equal responsibilities are less popular than equal rights.

Why is the world that I see around me mixed, and why is the world I see in movies filled with all white people? Why does it have to be like that?

If you're looking at the people who head the institutions, there are very few African Americans or people of colour. I'm talking about the major theatres that position themselves as serving all audiences. What you find is, by and large, people who are shaping what we see, and the people who are the tastemakers are white.

You cannot collectively, as a society, decide that you are only going to represent one part of a minority. It's like saying you've represented black people on television because you aired an episode of the 'Cosbys.'

Race affects everything that I do, and everything that I create speaks to intersectionality.

Hollywood's racist.

All too often, white documentary filmmakers are the ones telling the stories of people of color.

All the excuses that people in power used to make for not telling diverse stories or including diverse people, they've proven to be false.

People are making a lot more noise about representation and diversity. But I think modeling is one of the professions where people can be kind of racist.

I've never been more aware of my Asianness and femaleness than working in Hollywood.

It's almost comical how un-liberal liberal Hollywood is when it comes to fighting gender and racial bias.

I think #OscarsSoWhite is about there not truly being enough people of color represented.

Young Black actresses were not necessarily given the space in Hollywood to fully see ourselves.

If you want more diversity in the industry, you need diverse people writing scripts and developing them.

I don't think people realize what it's like for people of color to audition for film and TV.

Hollywood had a history of whitewashing and not representing.

If you exclude a group of people from the boardroom or the leadership ranks of a company, the company is not as good as it could be.