Quotes from Kenya Barris

I dug deep, and I found that there were people who voted for Obama and then voted for Trump - because they saw what they believed was going to be hope and change, and under Obama, their particular lives did not change.

The thing that I get so often with network comedies - and, I think, some of the most brilliant people in the world do them - but it's easy to hide behind a joke. I kind of feel like when you have to face things, and you don't have humor, it becomes very vulnerable; it exposes your deepest and darkest fears in some aspects.

No one's pro-police brutality.

At 24, I was probably making more than 95 percent of my friends. I was burning through money.

I tried to do Kwanzaa with my family and was like, 'This sucks. What am I doing this for?' For me, I felt like I was doing it because I was trying to live up to someone else's idea of what 'black' was.

To me, the Peabody was as big if not bigger than any award, but I do understand an Emmy Award-winning show has a different buzz when it comes to start talking about renewals and things like that. There's a professional something to it that matters.

I hear a creak in my house, and I'm calling the police immediately, but at the same time, I do know that when I call them, I'm going to make sure to say, 'I'm a black guy, and this is my house.'

No civil rights movement has gotten anywhere without the help of white liberals.

I'm doing another pilot about a black Democratic pundit who's married to a white Republican pundit. And the purpose of me wanting to do that show - and ABC sort of supported me in the way they did - is because I feel like, you know, the political system is like an old married couple.

We're supposed to be becoming more evolved as a society, and we're actually becoming less evolved.

'A Different World,' for me, was in a lot of ways responsible for me going to college. I wanted to go to a black college, and I wanted to get out of Los Angeles. It's just a natural part of all of our journeys, that idea of leaving home.

I'm a huge fan of writing for people rather than writing and then trying to wedge people in. I'd love to know who the people are before I can write for them. For me, it's a much more organic way to create characters.

The acknowledgement and celebration of Juneteenth as an American and possibly international holiday is something that I would put in the life goals column for me.

I don't know Channing Dungey well, but we have talked several times, and she seems like an amazing executive.

I wanted to do a show about a family that is absolutely black. Because as Du Bois has shown, we do have to live a double consciousness every day in the world. We have to walk our path and walk the mainstream path, and there's never really been a show that's talked about what that's like.

The small moments I've had to talk with President Obama, I've told him, 'I get it.' His presidency was in some ways almost overshadowed by the fact that he was the first black president.

I want to start really developing more on the film side.

You get a little older, and you start understanding the world in a different way and what you don't have control over and what you do have control over.

After the first couple of years of on 'Black-ish,' my wife and I actually broke up. We got back together, and it was this really, really difficult time for me.

I will be so happy when 'diversity' is not a word.

I set out to tell my story, which is based on my family. Dr. Cosby told his story in 'The Cosby Show.' The comparisons stop there in terms of my creation of the show. We just both happen to have black fathers at the center of it.

I believe comedy is a really good lens to filter serious issues through. If people are laughing, they don't necessarily realize until they stop laughing that they just took something in that's going to start a conversation.

As wild and raunchy as Richard Pryor was, people related to his honesty because they found something in their life that they understood.

You can have good times with anyone, but it's really different and much more interesting when you look at how you get through the bad times with someone.