Inclusive Narratives Quotes

I had talked to my agent a lot over the years about not being interested in stereotypical "black films" [because] I didn't like the way they were representing black people over and over and over again in the same way.

I started a production company out of necessity, the need for great narratives for actors of color.

I have always included minority characters in my stories, often as heroes.

Readers are hungry to have their stories in the world, to see mirrors of themselves if the stories are about people like them, and to have windows if the stories are about people who have been historically absent in literature.

If we [black people] do not show up and support the march towards cinematic equality, the march towards being on a level at - we don't even have to be higher than whites, but to be viewed in the same common thread of this is a professional, these are stories that people are interested in, instead of being fed the same old BS dogma that's been fed and the studios have used.

For African-American people, I am in the business of inventing a reality that gives a different perspective - on history, on crime, on art, on love.

There's a hunger our there for different types of stories, and I think there's an audience that's waiting and primed to accept a vision of America that looks like what they see when they walk out of the door each day.

When I meet gay kids and they know who we are, I remember that's amazing because literally every gay person in every gay story I knew growing up was doomed to die. There weren't any positive gay stories and it's incredible that has changed.

So many of us are hungry for stories with more racial diversity, more truth in representation, and I am anxious to help tell those stories in the future.

I want the marginality to come into the center. This is the thing I was conscious of growing up, when I later lived in England. I saw all these war movies that came out shortly after the war, and they were all about the war being fought by Englishmen or Americans, there were no other "allies" in it - from India or Australia, etc.

I'm not saying I have to write a book that's ten times better than my counterparts, but I do think that I have to concentrate my efforts on writing something that will really engage people's humanity and will tie readers to my characters regardless of race. I have to prove that I can connect with a wider audience.

It's really hard to get stories made that are about women. Not just women being obsessed with men, or supporting men. And it's really hard to get men to be a part of films that are about women in a leading role. I'm really interested in how we can adjust that.