Issa Rae

I hate to say it but I hate black humor. I feel like a Klan member saying it, but it's just not funny.

— Issa Rae

I hate to say it but I hate black humor. I feel like a Klan member saying it, but it's just not funny.

— Issa Rae

I never really had to put much thought into my race, and neither did anybody else. I knew I was black. I knew there was a history that accompanied my skin color, and my parents taught me to be proud of it. End of story.

— Issa Rae

Every black film feels like it's Tyler Perry, and that just needs to stop. But people seem to slowly be looking for what else is out there - 'Is there something else besides this type of humor?' 'I'm tired of seeing men in dresses.'

— Issa Rae

It's a bit cliche, but you can't go wrong by writing what you know. Even if you're a horrible writer, your own knowledge and experience is unrivaled. Nobody knows what you know like you know what you know. The way you see things is pretty unique.

— Issa Rae

There was such a dearth of films like that…And the high-school teen movie is a genre that I love. Everything at that age is so heightened and dramatic, and high-school movies capture that so perfectly. But those films are all white, too; there’s no black teen movie genre that exists in the same way.

— Issa Rae

“I was trying to stand out, trying to be the class clown and be super-funny. But everybody thought I was lame and hated me…I’ve experienced that real sense of feeling out of place plenty in my life.

— Issa Rae

Who I was was not acceptable to black L.A. youth: the way I spoke and my sense of humor. Everybody else had relaxers and pressed hair. I wore my hair in an Afro puff. Nappy. The way I dressed. It was all about name brands at the time in L.A. I had no idea. All those things, I failed miserably at.

— Issa Rae