The truth is, for me, when I was a young black girl who knew I was different, was watching TV, I would always be staring at the TV set looking for myself, and I didn't see me. And when you don't see yourself, you start to think that you don't matter, or you start to think that something is wrong with you.
Interpretation
This quote highlights the importance of representation and the impact of lack of visibility on self-worth.
Lena Waithe reflects on her experience as a young black girl who struggled to find herself represented in media. She emphasizes how the absence of positive representation can lead individuals to question their own value and identity, ultimately conveying the significance of seeing oneself reflected in the world to affirm one's existence and worth.
In practice
In a speech about diversity in media, you can use this quote to stress the importance of representation.
As a black woman in the industry, you really do have to hold your head higher, stick your chest out, be kind and polite and generous even when you don't want to be sometimes. I learned that and, also, just to never take no for an answer.
Being a black lesbian myself, I roll my eyes a little bit when I see black lesbian characters on shows where it's purely there for decoration. You can just hear it in the writers room... 'What if we make her a lesbian?'
It's weird because I see black gay characters on television all the time, but do I relate to them? Not always, because they're set pieces.
The cool thing about dope black style becoming in style is that the industry has no choice but to try and reduplicate that.
For me, it's about making art that's not good but phenomenal. James Baldwin didn't want to just stay above the fray. Prince didn't think, 'I wonder what the industry is gonna think about 'Purple Rain.'' It's just, is this honest? Is this real? Does this move me? The rest is icing.
Being born gay, black, and female is not a revolutionary act. Being proud to be a gay black female is.
American? Indian? I don't know what these words mean. In Italy, it is all about blood, family, where you come from. I'm asked where I am from. I'm from nowhere; I always was, but now I am happy knowing it.
I think, as a kid, turning on the television and seeing that everyone seemed to be wealthy and white made me feel like an outsider, lesser than. I was not wealthy. I was not white.
I have always wanted to be both man and woman, to incorporate the strongest and richest parts of my mother and father within/into me - to share valleys and mountains upon my body the way the earth does in hills and peaks.
I've always known exactly who I am. I was a girl trapped in a boy's body.
I understand if everyone looking at me is seeing a Jew and seeing me as a kind of 'other.' But I can't be expected to see myself that way. That is, to me, Jewish is the normal way to be; it's not a type of being.
My mixed-race background made me a broad person, able to relate to different cultures. But any woman of colour, even a mixed colour, is seen as black in America. So that's how I regard myself.
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