A Cup of Tee' and a lil' dash of honey

Where's the Representation??.. We Gotta Step It Up

I've said this a couple of times however I've never written an entire post about simply this. After seeing Viola Davis win an Emmy and become the FIRST black actress ever to win Outstanding Lead Actress in A Drama Series, Uzo Aduba win yet another Emmy cause the Queen has TWO for Outstanding Supporting Actress in a Drama Series, and Regina King win for Outstanding Supporting Actress in a Limited Series I was so happy.

Words can't even describe how over the moon happy I was that these beautiful black queens were being recognized for their work. Viola Davis has been slept on and overlooked for her talents for YEARS, yeah she has two Oscar nominations(one for a role that she only appeared for four minutes and still she slayed) however she still has been overlooked and not considered to be one of Hollywood's elite class of actors and actress who provide excellent performances to almost every role they play. Regine King has been around years as well and she as well isn't concerned to be on the Hollywood Elite list; provided Regina King has played some roles in some movies people won't consider five star or quality content however her acting has always been A1 no matter the role. Uzo Aduba slays her role as Suzanne aka Crazy Eyes in Orange is the New Black every season because let's be real the Black crew (including Crazy Eyes, Taystee,Poussey, Black Cindy, Watson) kinda make the show LIT and funny because while they stay outta people's problems most of the time( except when Vee was around) they're the ones who have the best ideas on how to fix things.

Anyway thought these women deserved every award they received and I was happy like I won something because it's so important for young black girls to see that regardless of their skin color they too can achieve the accomplishments. Basically when black people won these prestigious awards or achieve positions of power and influence, we all rejoice and it feels like we all won because we know that they had to work twice as hard to get their just due compared to the other non-ethnic folks who previously won that award or had that position.

Sunday night and Monday morning I saw nothing but love and admiration from almost everyone and it felt good. The Black Sisterhood that was shown at the Emmy's was so powerful, Tarjii was legit more excited almost than Regina King and Viola Davis when they won. From her reaction when Viola Davis won you would have thought they called Tarjii's name (cause she was nominated for the same award) instead of Viola's. The only person would had something bad to say was that soap opera lady who I refuse to even look up her name who said the emmy's wasn't the place to talk about racial opportunity because it's hard for "all women" in the industry *cough cough* white feminism strikes again and I'm glad Twitter read her for filth because she deserved it and she should have kept that fake apology she tried to give the next day because she meant what she said and the apology was only so she doesn't "look" bad but the damage was already done.

Like girl it's too late, we see how you really feel ole' I'm always nice to black people as alone as they stay in their lane and don't bother me. Ole' I can't believe people are calling me out on my racist remarks because I'm a feminist who would march for you people ( she did say this, her phrasing was different but the meaning is the same) It felt like from reading a couple of her tweets about Viola's speech that she would have been one of those Lady Mistresses who felted like she was so good and deserved to be honored because she treats her slaves good compared to how other folks did however it still wouldn't be something so beautiful about that because the problem was that the law still allowed her and she still felt like she could "own" humans as if they were property.

Viola Davis's speech was perfect and it hit everything right on the head. She put the fight black women fight their whole lives into perspective and into words that brought the real issue to the light. Black women and men can't win awards for roles that don't exist.

Representation and diversity matters.

Writers, producers have to challenge their selves to create roles that aren't stereotypical for people of color just like they write roles non-ethnic groups. Casting directors have to stop white washing stories that originally contain POC as the lead (ex: Exodus, The Hunger Games, the upcoming Mulan movie that has Scarlet Johansson as Mulan).

Hollywood period just has to become more diverse in all aspects.

Opportunities have to be created for all ethnicities of people to be represented better.

Here on Wattpad we all have the opportunities to write whatever we want to write and in a lot of cases we still lack representation in a lot of genres. Even in Romance &General Fiction, Urban is fine lol we be packed with stories and amazing content but mostly everything else is lacking very much so.

I think I see more Interracial stories than stories that revolve around POC simply and that's kind of sad. I read basically everything , the only genres I don't too much care for are Fanfiction (yes because sometimes I see beautiful stories get wasted and lumped into just being about a celebrity when if it was just about regular people the message would be more captivating and powerful & it's only some many times a quiet girl can meet One Direction, Chris Brown, August Alsina, etc. in a coffee shop and two seconds later they fall in love *rolls eyes*) &Vampire (because like ever since the Twilight trend has passed I be like "Damn I really liked these movies, why? " no shade to anyone as always tho.

It's so many stories that need to be told for POC that aren't because people refuse to write them. I'm guilty of writing Urban Fiction stories and just not writing anything else. I know I'm capable of writing other stories in different genres; I just don't because Urban Fiction is comfortable. It's like a blanket that a lot of us on Wattpad stay cuddled up under because it's safe for us.

I just hate looking for different books in different genres and the only books I find that have POC as their lead characters I have already read them.

I plan on trying my hardest to step out of my comfort zone soon.. I took down The Blood That Bonds Us All: A Sister's Love because I hated what I'd put up because it was just because another story that took that Urban Fiction route and that's not completely what I was going for. Whenever I put that story back up it will be so much better & its purpose will be served. I was moving too fast when it comes to putting it up without thorough planning and putting my thoughts correctly into a page.

I wanna see more POC as leads in Mystery/Thriller, General Fiction, Werewolf, Historical Fiction (this one especially because ya'll it's so many ways POC stories can be told whether it's real or fiction like hell if anyone wants to write a book in this genre hit me up, I'll give you an idea, plot, storyline seriously), Action, Adventure, Chicklit, Horror, Science Fiction, Paranormal, Vampire etc and in all the other genres we don't have much representation in. People of color exist in all aspects of life so people of color should be represented in all aspects of literature & fiction, television, movies, music and all other forms of media or entertainment.

We have the talent, we just have to put it to work in other places besides the ones we are always comfortable in.