A Quote by Alesha Dixon

There were very few British black women on TV or in music when I was a teenager; when you're growing up, you need someone you can identify with. I remember at Christmas being bought a doll that didn't look anything like me, so I threw it away.

Alesha Dixon

Quote Topics

Christmas Anything Away Being Black Black Women Bought British Doll Few Growing Growing Up Identify Like Like Me Look Me Music Need Remember Someone Teenager Threw TV Up Very Were Women

Quote Author

Alesha Dixon
British - Musician
Born: October 7, 1978

When I was growing up, there was no one. There were very few black women in tech; there were very few black women in the fashion game. We didn't have our Grace Jones - Grace Jones was before my time. We didn't really have a lot of black women in electronic and punk who were celebrated in the same levels as, say, your big mega-superstars.

Dawn Richard

I had very supportive parents that made the way for me, even at a time when there were very few women - no women, really; maybe two or three women - and very few, fewer than that, African-American women heading in this direction, so there were very few people to look up to. You just had to have faith.

Leah Ward Sears

Growing up, I remember watching TV, and I didn't see a lot of people who looked like me, especially someone who passed as a glamorous model on a mainstream TV show.

Hannah Simone

When I was growing up, there were very few women athletes. I remember watching Olga Corbett, but Peggy Fleming and Janet Lynn were my role models. I never dreamt that I could be at that level. I remember thinking they seemed so elegant and regal and powerful and feminine.

Dorothy Hamill

In the very early stages of working in sports, I was sick of being referred to as "the Barbie doll" because I had long, blond, fake hair. So I went and bought a boxed hair color, dyed my hair black, and put on glasses. And I looked ridiculous. I looked like a completely different person. I was trying to get away from the stereotype but what I realized in doing that is that what I say and how I conduct myself in what I do will speak for itself, and I don't need to apologize for being a woman in that space.

Charissa Thompson

I remember World War II when there were very few books, very little paper available. For me to walk into a shop or look at a list and see anything that I want, or almost anything, is like a kind of miracle.

Doris Lessing

Growing up biracial, I didn't have someone to look up to watching TV or movies. Halle Berry was the closest one who looked like me. I'm happy to see more biracial people on screen, and I'm happy to represent for the little girls who didn't have someone who looked like me on TV.

Vanessa Morgan

Where I grew up, it was all people who were black and Latino, people who look like me. Now I live in a neighborhood where very, very few people look like me.

Jacqueline Woodson

I was brought up in black neighborhoods in South Baltimore. And we really felt like we were very black. We acted black and we spoke black. When I was a kid growing up, where I came from, it was hip to be black. To be white was kind of square.

Jerry Leiber

When someone is themselves through their music, it's soul music. James Taylor is soul music to me 'cause it's just him talking about him. It doesn't have anything to do with black or growing up in the church; it's where it comes from. It's just soul music.

India Arie

I've always been a lover of classical music ever since I was an early teenager I suppose. I remember the very first piece of classical music that grabbed me was I bought an LP of Daniel Barenboim performing Mozart's piano concertos and I would have been about 14 or 15 at the time and I remember I played it over and over again.

George Brandis

At the age of seven, I wanted a doll with blonde hair and blue eyes like other girls in my class. But my father gave me a black doll and said 'black is beautiful.' Telling this to a seven-year-old was quite peculiar, but these were the values we inherited from him.

Shabana Azmi

When I was younger, I didn't have that type of person that I could look up to and be like, 'OK, this is someone who dresses like me and I relate to.' I didn't have that growing up, so to give that opportunity to a younger generation of women - and not just Somali women, but anyone who feels different - that means a lot to me.

Halima Aden

I read everything, but particularly, growing up in a household where my mom was black and my dad was white, I remember really loving 'Ebony' and 'Essence.' Those magazines were the only place where I could see images of women who looked like me or my mom.

Elaine Welteroth

I remember being like, 12 years old, and this was in the days before cell phones, or at least, having a cell phone. Some girls, I can't even remember who they said they were, called and said they had a crush on me. But it turned out to be a prank, and I thought that was just straight up nasty, you know what I'm saying? You're just sort of developing. You're insecure, your bones are growing... you have trouble sleeping. And all of a sudden, someone's pranking you on top of that? It's tough growing up.