Quotes About Representation

People told me several times during my first campaign to hide my youth and the fact that I was a nontraditional candidate - a 29-year-old woman. Instead of taking that bad advice, I really leaned in to who I was and wrapped my arms around the fact that I was young and female and that we needed representation for multiple generations in Congress.

Nobody wants to see a woman onscreen who is a wreck. That is pure, unadulterated, systemic misogyny.

I get that it's packaging and it's neat to put a name on what the girls are. But it seems to me that they were making us Sports Illustrated swimsuit models instead of women who wrestle on a pro wrestling program.

I think every woman on the roster wants to be at the main event for Wrestlemania. And if we ever get the opportunity to, it should be a match where every woman is involved.

When you become a professional wrestler, your name becomes company property.

When we were growing up, the only person we saw on TV that vaguely resembled us was the Iron Sheik - the pro wrestler whose signature move was the 'Camel Clutch.'

I like to think I proved a wrestler's skin color doesn't matter.

When I look around, I see so many incredible Black performers, inside and outside of our company. It feels like a really great time for Black wrestlers, and there are so many Black wrestling fans that I feel are starting to see themselves on screen.

Sometimes I'm out in public and people are like 'you're a wrestler?' and they kind of ask me with a little question in their voice, like 'oh I didn't know that WWE had wrestlers like you. I'm going to start watching.'

Wrestling has become its own thing separate from what it was in the past and now when people think of pro wrestlers they don't think of Hulk Hogan, they're thinking of guys like me.

I'm glad we're getting to this point where representation in WWE is becoming - especially among Black wrestlers, male or female - is becoming more common. And I hope that other Black men and women, boys and girls are inspired by them.

If it's just brushstrokes wrestling around, it isn't much of a picture book, is it? There still has to be a picture. And maybe it needs to be a picture of a dog named Daisy or a little girl riding a bike. So I have to be careful before I get too carried away in the manner itself.

If you put little person wrestler on a poster, people are going to say oh is that kids? Is that weird, odd people? You put midget wrestling they know what it is.

The NXT women are changing the way women's wrestling is viewed. It's an inspiration to be able to watch.

People are talking about women's wrestling, and that's all I've ever wanted since I was ten years old. I wanted people to talk about the women and all they could do. We're celebrating women's wrestling. People want to see us, and we're just doing our best.

If you watch wrestling, you now know the hip-hop culture is being represented with wrestling. For the longest time, the cultures have almost been parallel.

My father-in-law and I always had great interest in Indian sport. At the Athens Olympics, watching the wrestling event, we started discussing the state of Indian sport - inadequate representation, lack of satisfactory results etc. We thought we should do something about it.

I'm wrestling almost every single day of the week. I'm fighting for so much more. I'm trying to capture a life here, a future. I'm trying to put my kid in college. There are so many things I'm doing. I'm representing the biggest wrestling family on earth.

It is a privilege to be able to represent this sport and have a chance to share my love of Lucha with passionate wrestling fans around the globe.

I was always a wrestling fan, and being an Arab kid who grew up in Canada, there was no representation for people like me.

I think it's important to show in the 21st century that if you're gay, lesbian, trans, whatever, that you should feel just as welcome to be a wrestling fan as anyone else. You're welcome in the space.

I was the first Indian to take on and beat the best in professional wrestling, but I certainly don't want to be the last.

You want to give the fans all the sides to women's wrestling.

As much as I love to slay a red carpet hitting the ground running with 'Beale Street' and 'Native Son,' representing two such important voices in James Baldwin and Richard Wright let people know that I'm an artist and I really have something to say with this gift.