We grew up in abject poverty. Acting, writing scripts and skits were a way of escaping our environment at a very young age.

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Ordinary people who are just kind of just going about their lives are transformed into heroes because they have the courage to put their voices out there. And I think that's a powerful message in this time of political strife.

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We as artists cannot be politicians. We as artists can only be truth-tellers.

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At the end of the day, nobody can tell you how to tackle failure or how to handle change. The world is very good at encouraging you to go along with the status quo and at basking in your successes.

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When you see what the deficit is, then you have to do something about it.

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I think that you always want to gravitate towards people who absolutely are great at what they do and go for authenticity.

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Creativity only resonates if you infuse real life into the work.

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Let me tell you something: The only thing that separates women of color from anyone else is opportunity. You cannot win an Emmy for roles that are simply not there.

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Anything can be achieved with a good, healthy dose of courage.

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There's not one woman in America who does not care about her hair, but we give it way too much value. We deprive ourselves of things, we use it to destroy each other, we'll look at a child and judge a mother and her sense of motherhood by the way the child's hair looks. I am not going to traumatize my child about her hair. I want her to love her hair.

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