Quotes About Inclusion

A lot of times, in other films in the past, you see some drag roles that make you go, 'OK we're the punch line again.' You know, someone comes in and they're like, 'Oh is it a man?' that kind of thing.

The fact that I was black and desirous to do my work, the other kids would call me a coconut, as if I were somehow attempting to be white. The bullying was real: I'd get punched, spat at, terrible things.

My goal is to bring the issues that were never brought up on federal TV, such as LGBT rights, which are a shock for many people because they really think that those people should go to prison, they shouldn't have any rights. And moreover, there is lots of people who share the idea that they should be punished for being LGBT, just for the fact.

I was the only punk rocker at my high school. And there were at least a handful of black kids who liked hip-hop. Both were kind of the new music of the day, and it was lonely being the only punk.

I've done bit parts on shows where I've been the fat girl or the punk rocker.

For us, punk rock and even hardcore music was something we did because we didn't fit in in high school. We had nowhere to go, so we went to shows.

We have to reappropriate the concept of laicite (secularism) so we can explain to our young pupils that whatever their faith, they belong to this idea, and they're not excluded. Secularism is not something against them; it protects them.

We do not want to see teachers teaching their white pupils about white privilege and inherited racial guilt.

Only directors like Sanjay Leela Bhansali, who make period films, have songs in their movies that facilitate the inclusion of classical dance forms. No one else is concentrating on making pure classical numbers.

I am a fairly mongrelized person - you know I've been a migrant my whole life, and it's hard to think of myself as any pure one thing. And so I take it, I guess, very personally - this notion that migrants are bad and that mixing is bad and that people from other places are bad.

I love the story of Quasimodo, about someone who feels like they don't belong but is pure of heart and has good intentions. It's a great message for a younger audience.

I would love to live in a world that is purely equal, where everyone has equal opportunities in every way. But that is not reality.

There's room for everyone, and everyone is wanted and needed. Whoopi showed me that. When I first saw 'The Color Purple,' it was so huge. That was the first time I had seen myself, my mother, my aunts, women that I had known my whole life on-screen. It gives us hope, and it gives us confidence.

We should want children to value difference. Preparing them for a more just world doesn't mean teaching them to aspire to purple. It means helping them learn to celebrate black.

To all general purposes we have uniformly been one people, each individual citizen everywhere enjoying the same national rights, privileges, and protection.

In grade school I was taught that the United States is a melting pot. People from all over the world come here for freedom and to pursue a better life. They arrive with next to nothing, work incredibly hard, learn a new language and new customs, and in a generation they become an integral part of our amazing nation.

There are two reasons to pursue diversity and inclusion. One, because you believe one group has benefitted from hundreds of years of discrimination, or two, maybe you don't like that women make 73 cents on the dollar compared to men.

I don't know that I had context for being trans until I moved to Rochester, New York, to pursue my dream of acting, and started going to drag shows. I had never seen a transsexual before, and I didn't yet fully understand my own identity.

But in terms of what men and women can do, I believe and I think that America as a whole believes that women can do the same jobs as men and that we're not created unequally when it comes to the opportunities that we can pursue and the kind of work that we can do.

I'm a proud Dominican American. My folks always taught me that it's important to keep the ladder down and that to whom much is given, much is expected. That's why I have pursued a career in public service. I can't think of a better way to give back what this nation gave to us than to try to make sure that opportunity exists for everyone.

I would say get to know somebody who isn't exactly like you and doesn't come from the same background as you, educate yourself and then just keep showing up. Finding ways to show up for people and your voice will come out of that relationship and out of your pursuit to seeing people who aren't exactly like you.

It isn't life, liberty and pursuit of happiness for some - it is declared for all of us. So let's celebrate America by defending the right to vote - for every eligible citizen, everywhere in America.

To be admitted to Nature's hearth costs nothing. None is excluded, but excludes himself. You have only to push aside the curtain.

I fought for seven years to have creche facilities at the Okinawa Institute of Science of Technology - and was ultimately successful. Less successful have been efforts to get a creche at the new Crick Institute in London, but this is something I will continue to push for.