The black community can be competitive and cautious when it comes to those we want put on display for the world to see and judge. We are a prideful people who believe that anything that will make us seem 'less than' should be hidden.
I grew up in an environment with virtually no Hispanics where you see only people in your culture in custodial jobs. I had a messed up image of what we bring to this nation. My father was known as a pioneering figure in Cuban music, but I still associated him with everything that was negative in my neighborhood. I could not have been more mistaken.
I want to present the immigrant community in more of a real light.
The South has a way of worshipping appearances - the suburbs are all about presentation and amazing flowers and a beautiful yard and dinner parties that impress people and having the Christmas lights just right.
Let us change the image of Alabama by changing the image of its officeholders.
We must link Azamgarh to art and culture and not with terrorism and crime.
We see God all the time here. People only hear bad things about our neighborhood. Kensington is known as the badlands. I always say you have to be careful when you call a place the badlands because that is exactly what they said about Nazareth. Nothing good can come from there. I think we see God in the margins.
There have been a lot of things where communities haven't been portrayed in a positive light, and even when we were doing 'Youngers' in Peckham, people were cautious about what we were filming.
The image of a community is fundamentally important to its economic well-being. If all places look alike, there's no reason to go anywhere.
It's really important for me to have Italian-Americans and Jersey in a positive light.
Quite frankly, the financial community has to improve its image. The financial community has to be much more transparent than it is.
Woodstock is the only thing we have going for us in this part of the state in terms of national recognition. The idea is to extract what was good about Woodstock, repackage it, and present it to Middle America.
South Central's been portrayed so many different ways in the media for however long.
I tell people I live in Harlesden in north-west London, and I can see them thinking, 'Why do you live there?'
