Quotes About Representation

When I was young, I dreamt of being a starlet in Hollywood. But there comes a point in every African American's life when you realize the limitations, that you could only play maids or some little supporting role. Even Lena Horne couldn't get good parts.

If I or any other black can deliver at the box office, I'll get a lot of work. Too many young actors, regardless of their color, try to play an attitude on camera and fail to remember their job is to fit into an entertainment.

I think that, often, actors represent what they're not. You get people who define the aristocracy who are not aristocratic - they're lower-middle class or working class. An awful lot of your so-called angry young actors have grown up in extreme bourgeois comfort. It really is surprisingly common.

In 2018, according to the Children's Cooperative Book Center at the University of Wisconsin's School of Education, fewer than a third of all children's and young adult books in the United States featured a person of color as a main character.

I represented many of these kids as they become young adults in the criminal justice system when I was a public defender. One way of reaching out is by the mind of experimentation.

Especially now, with 'Glee,' it's allowed a lot of kids to love music and performing at a young age. All ages watched 'American Idol,' but I think it was nice to be able to show kids, 'Hey, you can be here, too.'

I started writing stories at a young age, but not once did it occur to me that I could grow up to be a writer. Who could I look to? My favorite authors were Ann M. Martin and E.L. Konigsburg and Judy Blume, Beverly Cleary and Lois Lowry and Norma Klein. They were all white women, and they seemed so stately to me, so elegant. A whole world away.

For me, it's important to be the representation that I wanted when I was a young girl.

I am an African-American woman of dark skin tone, and there are very specific roles that are usually given to African-American women of a darker hue. Let's start with 'Once on This Island': peasant girl. Let's go to 'The Color Purple': young girl, beaten. Let's go to 'Ragtime': Her baby's taken.

A young girl reached out to me to be her mentor one day, which I didn't really know anything about. What I did remember was what it was to be alone as an African-American dancer in the ballet world and wanting to connect with someone who looks like me.

As a young girl, I definitely struggled with knowing what to do with my hair. I was just in a neighborhood that had mostly white people, and the hair norm was long and sleek and straight. My hair naturally was curly, and I didn't have that many references.

Maybe some young girl seeing me on the Emmy stage may have meant something for them.

I didn't want my daughter to feel culturally isolated in the pursuit of her studies as I had as a young girl. I didn't want her to give up on her passions just because she didn't see anyone else like her in the classroom.

If there's 10,000 little boys racing around the world and there's only 10 girls, best case 100, the numbers are stacked massively against us. If you don't increase the talent pool of young girls, you're not going to get the best drivers at the top.

We want to be the face of women's football, to encourage young girls to play. If I have to be recognised in the streets to encourage them, I'm happy to do that.

Showing young girls' realistically captured bodies in ads lets young girls realise that it's okay to have dimples, stretches, rolls, etc. since we're only human.

Governments can make a greater effort to encourage computer science education, especially among young girls, racial minorities, and other groups whose perspectives have been underrepresented in AI.

I write for young girls of color, for girls who don't even exist yet, so that there is something there for them when they arrive. I can only change how they live, not how they think.

I saw there was an open market because everything was pushed towards young boys, but we had nothing for young girls. That was a role that could be filled, and finding Bayley helped.

I would love young girls to look up and see my string section or my brass section or the steel band and be like, 'Wow! I never thought I could do that, that's wicked! I want to be up there doing that.'

For young girls to see someone who looks more like her, doing and being her. That's where my ambition and drive comes from, it's being so insanely committed to that. To achieve that, I'm doing everything I can.

The reason Jennifer Lawrence is allowed to be a body-positive role model to young girls and 'chubby' women is because she is representative of conventional beauty.

I think it's great that young girls have the WNBA to look up to now.

It's so important for young girls of color - young girls of any color - to see diverse women as the heroes of their own story.