Rashida Jones & Dominique Fishback on Recognizing the Power of Their Voices: ‘Our Words Are Forever’

Before Rashida Jones switched from plans for law school to acting in the late 1990s, she was immersed in the arts. Jones, the daughter of entertainment icons Quincy Jones and Peggy Lipton, grew up with the idea that “If you have something to say, you should say it.” “It didn’t occur to me that there was a reason that I could be shut down,” Jones recalls. But, Hollywood had other ideas — and, as a Black woman in the industry, she quickly noticed a pattern. “I realized that it had nothing to do with me. There’s a systemic thing at work that I just happen to be not reaping the benefits from,” Jones explains. “There’s been many times in my career [where] I’ll say something or have an idea and it’s just washed over. And then 30 minutes later, an hour later, a day later, a white man says it and everybody’s like, ‘What a great idea.’”