What you want to do is talk about ideas, you write a novel, you have a lecture about those ideas. Satire and comedy are really the only film mediums where you can get into ideas and have people leave the theater without being moralized.

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.

America is a different country, and it will forever be a different country, after the election of Donald Trump.

As a director, I try not to implement a way for working, for every single actor, across the board. I try to work with each one, on an individual basis.

I love when scenes are intentionally and meticulously planned so we feel like this is a handcrafted scene that only works in this moment and this movie, and that's the way I approach my films.

One of the facets of growing up the way I did, I never had the experience of being solely in the black community. Even my family, my mother is what they call Creole, so she's part French, part black, and grew up in Louisiana. It's a very specific kind of blackness that is different than what is traditionally thought of as the black community and black culture. So, I never felt a part of whatever that was.

Racism is wrong, racism is very dangerous.