I wanted to be a filmmaker since I was a kid. I always did things that took me a little closer to that.

Racism is systemic: It's oppression that's built into the laws, legislation, into the way neighborhoods are policed, and into job opportunities and health care and education.

There is no monolithic black culture. It's completely different for someone born in Harlem to someone born in Houston or London with one exception, which is that people contributing to black culture have the experience of being black.

Usually, with 'Star Trek,' you always trust the captain. The captains are always going to pull us through; the captain's always going to win.

I thought I was depressed because I wasn't a writer/director. I moved into a space where I'm a writer/director, my movie is a hit at Sundance, I have a wonderful, loving boyfriend, and wow, I have financial stability. Why can't I get out of bed still?

Shows like 'Empire'... one of the most profound powerful things is that there's a gay male character who is loved. That character is going to save a lot of people's lives. Black families are confronting the idea that a gay black character can be human.

I remember distinctly not seeing myself. I didn't see myself in black culture, white culture, mass culture.

For me it's just, I have too many ideas, man. It's a problem, actually.

It's called 'Dear White People,' but really, it's about these black characters and how they are involved or not involved in a racial scandal in ways that might surprise them and others, right?

I think we are aware that post-racialism isn't real, right? I mean, I hope so. I kind of joke that we're post-post-racial.

Shonda Rhimes has figured it out, of getting multiracial casts on television and appealing to everybody.

I want the Latino 'Do the Right Thing' to happen. I want filmmakers whose voices are not represented to get a shot.

Everyone is very aware that, not only do we have a race problem, but it's so pervasive that it affects national and global politics on a scale that I don't think a lot of people imagined.

One of the things that I love about Robert Altman's movies is that, really, a Robert Altman movie is just a bunch of short films about various people told at the same time.

It's not new to attempt to vilify the minority that speaks about their oppression. That's not a new thing.

Balance, I think, and self-care is something I want people to really take to heart.

The way Hollywood and TV is, black people don't have any choice but to see ourselves in white-dominated television shows and stories and movies.

'Blue is the Warmest Colour' - I'm not a lesbian, I'm not French, I'm not a woman, but I saw so much of myself in those women and in those characters. I saw different parts of myself than I ever would've seen if I hadn't seen that film.

You can't get along in society without an identity.

I've always thought that 'Dear White People' should live on as a TV show, so I'll leave it at that.

I was blessed enough to know that I wanted to be a filmmaker when I was a kid, the first time I realized that that was something people did for a living.

I'm a lover of film and storytelling. I believe that I was put on earth to tell stories, and I'm not interested in telling the same stories over and over and over again.

I think great movies do promote conversation, great movies are honest, and great movies are sometimes polarizing.

I like the movies that embrace the complexity of the human condition.

I tend to be collaborative, and I want to hear other people's ideas. Especially with actors, I want them to feel like they can breathe life into their characters.

If you walk out of a movie that's meant to be about race in our country, and you're feeling good and happy, then that movie didn't tell you all of the truth. It's too big of an issue, and it's too complicated for you to feel good. It's something you should feel like you need to talk about.

I never liked 'Donnie Darko' quite as much as my film school peers.

'2001: A Space Odyssey' - I'd watched and hated it seven times before it provided the first 'religious experience' I'd ever had watching a film. Finally, I was able to pick up on what the film was transmitting almost entirely through dialogue.

I saw 'Beauty and the Beast' at eight years old in theatres and spent hours trying to recreate the majestic imagery of that story in a drawing notepad at home.

I think unless we have an honest conversation about race and identity in this country, we're never going to get anywhere.

The Black Lives Matter movement has spawned all kinds of activism.

The thing about TV is you kind of have an endless canvas. You can always keep going.

You watch 'Malcolm X,' and then Netflix recommends 'B.A.P.S.,' and you're like, 'What? Those movies have absolutely nothing to do with each other, but OK.' They don't recommend other historical biopics - it's 'B.A.P.S.' and 'Ghost Dad.'

Everybody else was quoting 2Pac, and I was running around with Green Day in my Walkman. Racially speaking, I wasn't cool or appropriate for any group.

The mark of a really great satire is its ability to seem prophetic, and I think that the television culture that film predicted really came true in the age of reality television and is a testament to how great it really is.

Basically, the system works to my disadvantage for no other reason than that I am a person of color, and I am telling stories about people of color.

There can't be reverse racism against a group that is not at a disadvantage.

I am more than a black guy. I am a person, I'm storyteller, I'm a son, I'm a friend, so I am all those things, so it is frustrating, to a degree, to be limited by other people's perceptions of me, but at the same time, it is true that I am a black guy, and, you know, it's like I'm rooted in but not bound by.

I'm not a big fan of shooting something that looks like it could belong in any movie. I'm not a fan of, okay, 'wide shot, wide shot, medium shot, close-up, close-up - we'll figure it out in post.' I hate that.

I've been taught through life experience that, like, I'd better open my mouth and quickly define myself in a new space and with new people because, if I don't, I will be defined.

Hip-hop isn't dead by any means, but it's not something I define my black identity with.

I find myself listening to Blood Orange and Janelle Monae and artists like that.

I don't doubt that straight white men have identity issues and identity complexes and struggle with defining themselves.

The further away you get from being a straight white man, the less freedoms you have to figure out who you are and negotiate what you mean to society.

For whatever reason, gay characters, or characters that deal with sexuality issues, who are black, in 'black films'... are typically not dealt with with any sort of complexity. They're exoticized: their being gay is sort of the point.

There is a difference between being offended and being prejudiced and even being bigoted against. There's a difference between that and racism.

Black people are experiencing a systemic disadvantage, and it goes back to slavery, which was not that long ago.

When you're part of a society where you're constantly having to define your identity and sort of negotiate with what the mainstream culture thinks you are, you have less energy and time to figure out who you are when you go home at night.

We get caught in our little silos and end up working against ourselves. And I think social media culture really encourages that, because you're really just shouting into a void hoping someone picks up on what you're saying.

We like to think of the '60s as Martin Luther King, Jr. and Malcolm X and a little bit of friction - no, there were all of these different groups. There was the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC), the Black Panthers, Martin and Malcolm, but also the Whitney Youngs of the world, the Bayard Rustins of the world.