Quotes About Representation

The government at all levels is overly represented by white men. That's part of the problem, and I'm a white man.

Even drawing gray hair at all is difficult to render in black and white.

When I speak of diversity, I don't mean replacement of white comics. I don't mean acceptance by white comics. We comics who weren't born into the white guy paradigm of 'funny' don't need a handout. We don't need a PC push. We don't need 'a look.'

In 'Hamilton,' we're telling the stories of old, dead white men, but we're using actors of color, and that makes the story more immediate and more accessible to a contemporary audience.

You didn't have to read 'Playboy,' visit the mansion, wear pajamas, or even be straight: The effects of its ideas about women on the American psyche were totalizing. Women were inferior to men because, for 'Playboy,' they were scenery - pretty, passive, usually white, often blonde, there.

I remember when I first saw Whoopi Goldberg doing standup, and she was wearing a sheet on her head, basically pretending to be this little white girl with long luxurious blonde hair. Everyone can relate to that. It's an oral history of black women's lives through laughter.

I really do believe that was what I was put on this planet to do: to give to people and, through my performances, show them another world - in the case of '24,' to show them what a politician, black or white, should be. Basically, I wanted to be a service to others.

Even though we are a nation that's becoming a minority country, we still have this view where everything is seen through the prism of the dominant culture, which really means white.

The entire world is skewed from the white male perspective. If you're a woman, they have to say it's a female-driven comedy. If it's a comedy with Latinos in it, it's a Latino comedy. 'Normal' is white male, and I find that to be shocking and ridiculous.

I question the political judgement of those who would have the nerve to paint Christ white with his obvious African nose, lips and wooly hair.

'Do the Right Thing' was my first union film. I looked at the rosters, and for the most part, it was white males. Especially the Teamsters. So we had some conversations.

As a young black woman, I notice at times in the mainstream media framing of the 'me too' movement you see a white female face or a white male face, and that type of questioning and interrogation needs to happen.

People of African descent, most of us grew up accepting and loving Spider-Man. I still love Spider-Man. I still love the Incredible Hulk. I still have those characters that were white role models, superheroes, heroes - whatever you want to call it. You basically had no choice but to accept those.

Nowadays, people always say, how come he's doing such young shows? But they never mention The Mod Squad. I was very proud of that show. It's the first time an African-American guy kissed a white girl.

We're the first not-white family to ever live in the governor's mansion. My son-in-law is Puerto Rican. I have a beautiful little granddaughter who is half Korean and half Latina. I'm the only white guy in the house.

As Black people, we're very used to empathizing with the world through white people's eyes, because they're the protagonists. I know what it's like to look at the world and empathize with Superman because I spent my whole life doing that.

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.

If technology is designed mostly by white males, who make up roughly half our population, we're missing out on the innovation, solutions, and creativity that a broader pool of talent can bring to the table.

Fantasy stories have almost always been very white and European-focused, and we wanted to tell a story that would feel both more modern and more global. We wanted to attract a diverse audience.

I'm always thinking about what a black lady would think about what I'm doing, just because I feel like they have such great taste, mostly because as black women, we've spent a lot of time downloading what a white male narrative is, so in my head, I'm like, 'If a black woman likes it, if she responds to it, then it's probably pretty damn great.'

We can't just pay attention to women who look fantastic in a photograph, because there are a lot of people that have fantastic things to say that don't look like 25-year-old white models.

I'm thin and white and blond, but I'm not an airbrushed, perfect thing. I have stretch marks all over. I have cellulite; I have acne. To me, it feels like you can't really be what you can't see, and so if you don't see those things, then you don't feel like you're valid.

'Hamilton' just asks us all to go a little bit deeper: whether you're a hip-hop fan seeing musical theater for the first time, or if you were thinking you were gonna see some reprise of 1776, and now it's this? And you're thinking, 'Wait a minute, these people aren't white!' It asks you just take a step and go a little deeper.

The people who used to hold the purse strings were a select group of white, middle-aged men, but that's changing, and the more it continues to change, the more we'll see inclusive stories get told.