A Quote by Mathew Knowles
I wanted people to begin dialogue about racism, about colorism. I wanted people to really become honest about our beliefs, about racism and how it exists in America today.
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'Color-blind' comes up - people say 'Oh, I'm color-blind and therefore can't be accused of racism,' but I think that if we are going to have an honest dialogue about racism, we have to admit that people of color are having a different experience.
This film isn't about "white racism", or racism at all. DEAR WHITE PEOPLE is about identity. It's about the difference between how the mass culture responds to a person because of their race and who they understand themselves to truly be. And this societal conflict appears to be one that many share.
The great thing about 2017 is that, because of the terrible political state that we're in and that America is in, young people are so vocal at the moment about so many issues, from racism to LGBT rights to beyond. I feel like - especially when I look at my fan-base - people are so vocal about their opinions and so vocal about spreading love. That's really important, and I think it's really amazing that people are talking about that. I just want that to keep happening.
Let's be very honest about what this is about. It's not about bashing Democrats, it's not about taxes, they have no idea what the Boston tea party was about, they don't know their history at all. This is about hating a black man in the White House. This is racism straight up.
Racism exists everywhere. So when people act surprised about racism, I'm the one that's surprised.
We need to make sure that we have an honest, honest conversation and that we engage honest practices around how racism operates in this country. It's not just about people being mean to each other.
People say to me 'you're successful, what are you crying about?'. I'm crying about the people. I'm crying about their daughters. Our daughters, as one family. What good is it. What good is anything that everyone can't have. Every ism. They think we're done with racism. What about elitism, what about separatism, what about classism? That's all.
Racism is not about hurtful words, bruised feelings, political correctness, or refusing to call short people 'vertically challenged.' Racism is about the power to treat entire groups of people as something less than human—for the benefit of that power. That’s why a Native American sports mascot is far from harmless.
As a country, we are in a state of denial about issues of race and racism. And too many of our leaders have concluded that the way to remedy racism is to simply stop talking about race.
I warn young people that I interact with about this - you get into unrealistic expectations where you think that, "Oh, we're gonna eliminate racism like that. After Obama's elected how could there be any racism?".
But everyone, including ethnic minorities, should be worried about how anti-racism is becoming weaponized across the political spectrum - how a lot of people in politics think it's a good idea to exaggerate the problem of racism.
The thing people have to remember is there's nothing natural about racism as it exists in America. I mean, we know this historically. We can look at 1619, when Africans first came here, and how early African slaves intermixed pretty indiscriminately with indentured white servants.
Many people who are drawn to work about racism and transphobia may be new to thinking deeply about colonialism and indigenous resistance in their North America.
There's a difference between racism and people making a joke about something. There is true racism going on, and people should be able to identify what that is, comparatively.
We hide our racism. We just go on about our lives - may I say, white Canadians go on about their lives. African-Canadians understand racism, Indigenous Canadians understand racism: they see it all the time, they live with it.
My friends are always honest with me about films. But I really wanted to talk to regular people and kind of have a forum to interact with them; not just about films, but about everything.
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