I don’t particularly like putting forward an image of myself that’s to — Amandla Stenberg

"I think that as a black girl you grow up internalizing all these messages that say you shouldn’t accept your hair or your skin tone or your natural features, or that you shouldn’t have a voice, or that you aren’t smart"

"I thought a lot about the concept of cultural dysphoria, and how that can shape how people relate to the world,"

"The line between cultural appropriation and cultural exchange is always going to be blurry"

"I think already, at age 12, I was like, Yeah, people are racist. Why are y’all surprised?"

"When I reflect on it, I don’t remember being very upset about it. I remember feeling that I don’t give a flying f**k what these racist people think of me. I think bigots don’t really bother me"

"A lot of my adolescence was defined by being here. I feel like the first time I really experienced freedom and autonomy was here, so I think I probably fell in love with New York and knew it was the place I wanted to live when I was 15 or 16. Then I had a series of unsuccessful attempts to move here that were thwarted by different things"