Quotes About Representation

Jeremy Lin is the only Asian American in the NBA today and one of the few in any professional U.S. sport. His arrival is surely leading other talented Asian American athletes this week to contemplate a pro career.

It's one thing to be talented, but the other thing is connections - with agents, with people; that's what makes a difference, and from the beginning, I've had wonderful representation.

It's about very talented writers, directors, producers, and actors being in a position for their projects to be supported, but there's just not enough black projects being made.

There's so many other talented women of color who write funny things every day, and I want them to be recognized, I want them to have a seat at the table because we're out here.

I love any books by Kelly Sue DeConnick or Marjorie M. Liu; it's lovely to have successful, talented female writers doing great work in comics.

Why have a model on the front of your magazine when you can have Kate Winslet, Cate Blanchett or Hilary Swank? Because those girls are intelligent and talented, people are interested.

So I don't think WWE is lacking when it comes to women talents.

Maybe even at six or seven, I knew that, sweet as they were on the surface, all fairy tales needed a feminist shake up.

I think fashion can tell a story about celebrating difference, can talk about how different people are, how diverse people are - and for me, that's where fashion really succeeds, when it tackles things to do with the world we live in.

In particular I want to talk about natural black hair, and how it's not just hair. I mean, I'm interested in hair in sort of a very aesthetic way, just the beauty of hair, but also in a political way: what it says, what it means.

My love is political. My body is political. I talk even when I don't speak.

I'm open about having bipolar disorder. I'm open about being of mixed race. I'm open about being bisexual, and I have this wantingness to talk about it, and for me, it's about more than being a role model for any specific community.

I'm getting more and more used to the fact that being a director and being a woman are two things that everyone wants to talk about, because it's so rare.

Because when I go places and I talk to kids and I talk to parents and I talk to athletes all over, and they look at my story and they see a person, African-American or not, they see something that they can relate to.

I don't think what you hear on talk radio is representative of America.

I grew up in a household where we talked about race all the time, and that's sort of in me. So if I become the Anthony Bourdain of race and culture, then great!

After I made it to the NBA, I said that I didn't want to be the last player from Africa. After my rookie year, I went to the league and talked about this, and they embraced my idea and started conducting basketball clinics in Africa, and that's when I knew I wouldn't be the last African.

I think it's great to be talked about as a woman film-maker. It's part of who I am; it affects me daily. I want it to be part of the conversation. I'm for any scheme or initiative that gives women a way in.

I did not want to be the gay artist, and I talked to my manager all the time, like, I don't want to lead with that. I didn't want people to look at me like that's all I am.

Half the world is full of women, but it's rare to hear a narrative that doesn't speak of women as the people who have things done to them instead of the people who do things. More often, women are talked about as a man's daughter. A man's wife.

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.

If I were to have seen more people that looked like me - because I'm Palestinian and Lebanese - and talked like me and acted like me, I probably would have had a lot more hope knowing that I wasn't alone. I really hope that this show, 'Champions,' gives that to people.

It's really funny to me that I get called a workhorse or somebody who's really good at making other people better in the ring. I feel like I'm good at every aspect of this. I feel like I'm a great talker; I feel like I'm a great representative of the company. I broke records in college. I have an amateur background with fighting skills.

Indigenous people in films, it's all, like, nose flutes and panpipes and, you know, people talking to ghosts... which I hate.