Underrepresented Voices Quotes

There is that great proverb - that until the lions have their own historians, the history of the hunt will always glorify the hunter. That did not come to me until much later. Once I realized that, I had to be a writer. I had to be that historian. It's not one man's job. It's not one person's job. But it is something we have to do, so that the story of the hunt will also reflect the agony, the travail - the bravery, even, of the lions.

My husband [Julius Tennon] and I started a production company. We've already optioned a book and some scripts to do exactly that, to create more complicated, multi-faceted roles for African-Americans, especially African-American females. I think it's important.

We're at an interesting phase of Asian and Asian-American writing, where we might succeed in having readers look at us as creative individuals who write with fury and fire about the world, and in new ways, without having them say things like "I read a really good Indian book," or "That Malaysian fellow writes very well." So I hope by identifying as Indian I can get people who don't usually read "ethnic" or "Indian" literature to read that literature and enjoy it.

The one thing I try to do with everything I write is open people's eyes to those they normally ignore or dismiss. To make people aware of the "other" side of things. That someone's circumstances may not be what you think they are or what they show to the world.

That's what independent filmmaking does: it gives the underdog a voice, a shot.

The reliance on stereotypes is in part the result of a structural problem within the media. Most newspapers have a business beat, with a number of highly trained journalists who know how to cover companies, trading, the markets and so on. But almost none have labor reporters anymore, and to my knowledge, none have full-time poverty-beat correspondents. And all of this helps to render invisible the lives and the life stories of tens of millions of Americans.

The reason I got into filmmaking was super naive: to change the world, you know? To really make the voices that we don't get to hear heard and the images and the stories that we don't get to see seen. I would like to normalize that.

I am here to give voice to the invisible.

I come from an educational environment that really praises, as do I, the forms of representation that are otherwise lacking in our public media.

American film isn't just film and glamor and fame and the lives of people who are fortunate financially. Those aren't the only stories in this vast nation. That's my mandate.

I think that you need to have books that talk about the lives of the poor, and they need to be involved - involved in acquisitions.

My intent is to speak on behalf of those whose voices are less readily heard - children and women at risk

Today it is fashionable to talk about the poor. Unfortunately, it is not fashionable to talk with them.

I want the Latino 'Do the Right Thing' to happen. I want filmmakers whose voices are not represented to get a shot.

What attracts me to material are characters that I know - characters that I know people don't know but I know - and bringing them to the screen. Spotlighting voices that have not been heard before on screen.

The popularity of '2 Dope Queens' just showed there was like a hunger for new stories because we have alternative comics on our show that wouldn't normally be featured on, like, a white guy's comedy show.

The big idea behind it was to somehow participate in the discussion about justice. What does it mean to be just to the others out there whose lives we do not think about. One of the answers I came up with was simply tell their stories.

Film and TV is a very hard profession to enter into if you don't have the ability to take a long period of time without making money so you can write, direct or raise financing, or work your way up, often with unpaid internships. It's hard to get into without a lot of connections. You end up with a lot of white people from privilege making films. So we're seeing a lot of the same kinds of stories.

Diversity in literature is, in part, about representation - who is telling the stories and who stories are told about.

That's very, very important to me, to give another narrative. And Netflix has not been afraid of doing that, as we see from the plethora of shows that they have, from British shows to American shows like 'Master of None,' which I've been very grateful to be on, too. Just giving platforms to people who haven't seen themselves on TV.

This whole idea of too much TV, I think is really gross. Because I feel like it's mostly white men who are saying it. And it's like, 'Yeah, man, there's too much TV for you, but by nature of there being so much TV, there are other voices being represented.' Isn't that a wonderful thing?

Marcos is all the exploited, marginalised, oppressed minorities resisting and saying "Enough!" He is every minority who is now beginning to speak and every majority that must shut up and listen. He is every untolerated group searching for a way to speak. Everything that makes power and the good consciences of those in power uncomfortable - this is Marcos.

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

You know what needs to be done when you're a writer. You know what the job is, particularly if you're an African American writer, or if you deal with people, or if your subjects are poor people or people who need voice. So you don't really need to know whether or not you are doing the right thing. What you have to be wary of if you're doing the right thing to the right level that will surpass your own life. I'm hoping that my work will surpass my own life.

When you don't have a seat at the table, you're on the menu, my friend Lee Saunders has said, and he is correct.