A Quote by Khoudia Diop

Where I grew up, we had light-skinned models but not dark. Every time I would talk about being a model with my friends, they would start laughing out loud. — © Khoudia Diop
Where I grew up, we had light-skinned models but not dark. Every time I would talk about being a model with my friends, they would start laughing out loud.
I started drinking when I was like 15, and by the time I was 19 everybody knew I was an alcoholic. So I would start five fights every weekend and lose terribly. First you start off fighting with one person and then he beats you up; and then one guy would be laughing, so you would hit him, too.
When I was little I used to dance and model and that was fun. But I was always the person that was goofing off and I would memorize every line in every movie that I saw. And at recess that's what I would do, I would talk to my friends and recite movies.
I wanted to be an actress. I think it had a lot to do with being a kid and watching how every time my dad would stand up to talk people would applaud... that was pretty cool.
When I grew up I assembled my role models à la cart. I wanted to be an astrophysicist. If I tried to find a role model who grew up in the Bronx with my skin color who was an astrophysicist, I would never have become an astrophysicist.
As much as I loved Pacino and De Niro and wanted to be a dramatic actor, I also grew up on sitcoms. I grew up on 'M*A*S*H' and 'All In The Family' and 'Cheers.' And then around this time - this would have been '95, '96 - I was so into 'Friends' and 'Mad About You,' the idea of being on a sitcom became a very real thing that I wanted.
I had no idea at all how to model, but people would start to follow me. So, I would go to these start-up companies and say, 'I have all these followers... how can we work together?'
But I know I would not go out. I had taken this time to fall in love instead — in love with the sort of helplessness I had not felt in death — the helplessness of being alive, the dark bright pity of being human — feeling as you went, groping in corners and opening your arms to light - all of it part of navigating the unknown.
I was in depression. I was in my room, dark every night, not wanting to talk to nobody, not going out with my friends, not doing anything, not having a great time. It was a lot of dark nights.
I'm not scared, if that's what you're wondering. The moment of death is full of sound and warmth and light shooting away, arcing up and up and up, and if singing were a feeling it would be this, this light, this lifting, like laughing... The rest you have to find out for yourself.
Who doesn't have a dark place somewhere inside him that comes out sometimes when he's looking in a mirror? Dark and light, we are all made out of shadows like the shapes on a motion-picture screen. A lot of people think that the function of the projector is to throw light on the screen, just as the function of the story-teller is to stop fooling around and simply tell what happened, but the dark places must be there too, because without the dark places there would be no image and the figure on the screen would not exist.
I grew up in the dark ages, pre-digital, when everyone would wait for a magazine each month to see these models who became legendary and iconic, like Kate Moss.
I would be in class, and we'd talk about influencers and brand deals, and my face would pop up on the screen and they'd start talking about me! They had no idea that I was sitting in the class. I never wanted anyone to know.
We know there aren't enough dark-skinned women that are being represented so that was something I really felt like I needed to talk about.
I think I was a shy kid. I grew up without television. I had a dog, and we lived up in the White Mountains in the summer, and I had no friends up there. And I would just go play hide-and-seek with my dog and probably had some imaginary friends.
I have three kids. Now they're all grown up, but when they were little, every time I would start a new project, they would say, 'So dad, are you making a movie we can watch or one we cannot watch?' That's the kind of stuff they would ask. People around me - family and friends - usually know when to watch and when not to watch.
I grew up and had a lot of friends who were gay and Mormon. They couldn't come out to their parents. They couldn't even come out to me because we just wouldn't talk about it.
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