Actress Regina King, wrote a heated letter to the producers of the 62nd Annual Prime Time Emmy awards. Ms. King was very upset that her co-worker and long time friend, Alaina Reed Hall of Sesame Street and 227, was not included in the “in memoriam” montage. On top of that the award show mistakenly referred to actress Rutina Wesley of True Blood, as Regina King (because hey all blacks look alike). Right? Regina King, generally very quiet, wrote a letter expressing her feelings on race in the industry.

Since the Emmy ceremony, I have been going back and forth about whether or not I should compose this letter. I try hard in my daily life not to engage in uncomfortable situations regarding race. But sometimes it’s very difficult to find other reasons that better explain why certain events play out the way they do. It is impossible for me to ignore the published statistics regarding the number of people of color mentioned, celebrated or honored in the history of the televised Emmys. Up to and including this year, there have been only 53 non-white actors nominated for Emmys out of nearly 1,000 possible nominations in the top four acting categories for drama and comedy.

I’ve worked in television nearly all of my professional life, and that statistic is quite sobering to me. And to add injury to my already sensitive nerve endings a picture of Rutina Wesley from True Blood, who attended this year’s Emmys, had a caption that read: “Regina King enters the 62nd Emmys.” No, I wasn’t there. Mistakes happen, right? Well after a few “mistakes” of how people of color are portrayed in the Hollywood media, I decided it was important to say something about how things go down in Hollywood. Continue Reading →