viola davis
By Katie Barnes • @Katie_Barnes3 • 9 years ago

Watch: Viola Davis’s speech and all the #BlackGirlMagic that happened at the Emmys

The 67th Emmy Awards aired last night, producing some truly amazing moments. Women of color won in a pretty big way. We had Regina King win her first Emmy for her role in American Crime…

Orange Is the New Black‘s Uzo Aduba won her second consecutive Emmy and was so emotionally raw that everyone cried…

And Viola Davis became the first Black woman to ever win an Emmy for best lead actress in a drama series. Her acceptance speech was even better than the show for which she won (How to Get Away with Murder). She started with a quote from Harriet Tubman and ended by honoring her sisters in the struggle to be seen in Hollywood.

“In my mind, I see a line. And over that line, I see green fields and lovely flowers and beautiful white women with their arms stretched out to me over that line. But I can’t seem to get there no how. I can’t seem to get over that line.” That was Harriet Tubman in the 1800s. And let me tell you something: The only thing that separates women of color from anyone else is opportunity. You cannot win an Emmy for roles that are simply not there. So, here’s to all the writers, the awesome people that are Ben Sherwood, Paul Lee, Peter Nowalk, Shonda Rhimes. People who have redefined what it means to be beautiful, to be sexy, to be a leading woman, to be black. And to the Taraji P. Hensons and Kerry Washingtons, the Halle Berrys, the Nicole Beharies, the Meagan Goodes, to Gabrielle Union. Thank you for taking us over that line. Thank you for the Television Academy. Thank you.”

Even Kerry cried. It was beautiful.

Header image credit: ABC News

CT

Katie Barnes (they/them/their) is a pop-culture obsessed activist and writer. While at St. Olaf College studying History and (oddly) Russian (among other things), Katie fell in love with politics, and doing the hard work in the hard places. A retired fanfiction writer, Katie now actually enjoys writing with their name attached. Katie actually loves cornfields, and thinks there is nothing better than a summer night's drive through the Indiana countryside. They love basketball and are a huge fan of the UConn women's team. When not fighting the good fight, you can usually find Katie watching sports, writing, or reading a good book.

Katie Barnes is a pop-culture obsessed activist and writer.

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By Meg Sri • @fudgeposner • 6 years ago

Read This Free Book Compiling Powerful Leftist & WoC Writing On #MeToo

In the wake of important conversations around sexual harassment and sexual violence being had following the #MeToo movement, leftist publishing house Verso is offering for free an e-book entitled Where Freedom Starts: Sex Power Violence #MeToo, a collection of powerful and intersectional takes on power, feminism, and politics.

The book is an important intervention in a conversation that, in the mainstream, even “liberal” media, has become distracted relitigating regressive questions of what constitutes consent and whether women ask for it and diluted in its impact by the transphobia of one of its key initial instigators. On this website, we’ve tried our best to steer the conversation in other directions instead: discussing the centrality of trans ...

In the wake of important conversations around sexual harassment and sexual violence being had following the #MeToo movement, leftist publishing house Verso is offering for free an e-book entitled Where Freedom Starts: Sex Power Violence #MeToo, a ...