Lena Waithe 1st Black Woman In Emmy History To Win for Comedy Writing

A post shared by Variety Magazine (@variety) on Sep 17, 2017 at 7:01pm PDT

Lena Waithe 1st Black Woman In Emmy History To Win for Comedy Writing

Lena Waithe made history on Sunday night. The 33-year-old actress, producer, and screenwriter is now the first African-American woman to win an Emmy for comedy writing. She won for co-writing the “Thanksgiving” episode of Master of None with series co-creator and star, Aziz Ansari. Waithe also had a recurring role on the Netflix comedy.

During her speech, she thanked her LGBTQIA family, stating:

I see each and every one of you. The things that make us different, those are our super powers. Every day when you walk out the door and put on your imaginary cape and go out there and conquer the world because the world would not be as beautiful as it is if we weren’t in it. And for everybody out there that showed so much love, thank you for embracing us, a little Indian boy from South Carolina and black girl in the south town of Chicago. We appreciate it more than you could ever know.

See her speech below.

A post shared by Ben Cory Jones (@benthewriter) on Sep 17, 2017 at 6:40pm PDT

The widely acclaimed episode was based on her experience of coming out as a lesbian.

Waithe called out the importance of diversity in entertainment and the culture at large in accepting the award. She was clearly overcome with emotion.

Lena herself is in the midst of a big career move. She’s about to launch an autobiographical Showtime series, “The Chi,” about her coming of age years in Chicago. She’s also developing other TV projects.

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