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I was raised in Nigeria, and my mother is white, but I never saw her as white, not until I came to America. She was just my mother. She didn't really have a color.

Two years ago I hadn't even thought of the Woman in White, and I was doing a television show and I said I hadn't found a story and the next day somebody rang me and said have you ever thought of the Woman in White.

I don't look like a white woman. I look Somali.

I don't know that I constantly think about being a black woman.

I make films about black women and it doesn't mean that you can't see them as a black man, doesn't mean that he can't see them as a white man or she can't see them as a white woman.

I don't see the world completely in black and white. Sometimes I do.

I go out with white women. This makes a lot of people unhappy, mostly black women.

My mother worked in the white world, but I lived almost exclusively in a black world. I don't think I had ever seen a white teacher until I got to high school.

My mixed-race background made me a broad person, able to relate to different cultures. But any woman of colour, even a mixed colour, is seen as black in America. So that's how I regard myself.

We all have these challenges and stereotypes that exist, but you can't let that hold you down... If that's the first thing you think about as a black woman - the challenge that lies ahead - you are thinking in the wrong direction, in my opinion.