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Suddenly in high school, I'm in a predominantly Jewish atmosphere. Jewish people were my gate to white America.

Anna Deavere Smith

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Anna Deavere Smith
Age: 74
Born: 1950
Born: September 18
Academic
Actor
Actress
Film Actor
Playwright
Screenwriter
Stage Actor
Television Actor
University Teacher
Writer
Baltimore
Maryland
Anna Smith
Anna Devere Smith
Anna Deveare Smith
High
White
School
Predominantly
America
Gate
People
Gates
Jewish
Atmosphere
Suddenly

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I love studying how people are. Not just what they're saying, but how they are, what they're doing.
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My work is about giving voice to the unheard, and reiterating the voice of the heard in such a way that you question, or re-examine, what is the truth.
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Commit to finding the true nature of art. Go for that thing no one can teach you.
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Movies, as evidenced by a chorus of protesting and celebrating Americans, influence broader trends.
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We who are in the arts are at the risk of being in a popularity contest rather than a profession. If that fact causes you despair . . . pick another profession. Your desire to communicate must be bigger than your relationship with the chaotic and unfair realities . . . We have to create our own standards of discipline.
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In my profession, I'm around a lot of people whose bodies are their instruments in one way or another.
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I think what I am is a convener I like to convene people around ideas.
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You hang around actors, or dancers, the minute you sneeze, everybody has a remedy, and we're all on a million different kinds of diets, and different kinds of things that we do for exercise.
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I think that art is supposed to be ahead of the times.
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Somehow we can't live outside the politics of race. There's something very deep in all of us, that is taught to us when we are very, very little. Which is the disrespect and fear of the other.
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What you are will show, ultimately. Start now, every day, becoming, in your actions, your regular actions, what you would like to become in the bigger scheme of things.
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Self-esteem does not come from surrounding yourself with people and things that seem to increase your value. Real self-esteem is an integration of an inner-value with things in the world around you.
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Racism has been for everyone like a horrible, tragic car crash, and we've all been heavily sedated from it. If we don't come into consciousness of this tragedy, there's going to be a violent awakening we don't want. The question is, can we wake up?
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Discipline — both mental and physical — is crucial.
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I remember from my father's funeral that the minister kept using a metaphor about life of a prism. And I took that away like a cherished image.
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