Actress Regina King: ‘The Emmys: As White as Ever’

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In her blog post (via the Huffington Post) entitled “The Emmys: As White as Ever,” actress Regina King brought up two interesting points in regards to this year’s 62nd Annual Emmy Awards.

The historical and prestigious award show has come and gone but King recently pointed out that:

“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.”

Actually according to Variety, since 1986, non-white actors have received only 53 nominations out of nearly 1000 in the top four acting categories for drama and comedy. Only eight have ever won.

Astonishing but not surprising. However, Variety’s article states “53 non-whites,” which includes all other minorities–not just African-Americans.

Now that’s somewhat surprising.  53 out of 1000 possible nominations since 1986, eh?  Never knew that.

Another point Regina makes in her Huffington Post article is regarding actress Alaina Reed Hall, with whom she co-starred on the NBC television series 227 starring Marla Gibbs:

“The initial pull on my heart strings was not seeing the veteran Sesame Street actress Alaina Reed Hall included in this year’s memoriam. I know I am taking it somewhat personally because of the history I shared with her, but then I stopped to think about the fact that she was on Sesame Street for 12 years, a show that is an American institution. People of all ages and generations have seen and enjoyed this highly influential television show. You have to admit, to not recognize her contribution to television baffles the mind. I first wondered, maybe I had turned my head quickly and missed seeing Alaina’s picture scroll past the screen or she was mentioned later. But no such luck.”

In conclusion, I didn’t necessarily sense that Regina was angry in her article post (more like baffled, as she stated) but I did think this particular post was an interesting contrast to her previous article on how she felt that black women shouldn’t be afraid to date outside their race.  You can find Regina’s full article below:

Huffington Post

Photo/©Glenn Francis/PacificProDigital.com

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