00:00All right perfect so we are here with the Emmy nominated Ashley Nicole Black tell me first what
00:13does it mean to you to be honored tonight at the Gen Next Awards it's amazing it was a huge surprise
00:17and I looked at this list of women and I was like oh I want to belong on that list that feels pretty
00:22nice okay this should not be a surprise to you because you do so much for women you really do
00:29I mean through your comedy and your writing the work that Samantha Bee does and that you do on her
00:35show really is empowering to women is that your goal when you are writing things thank you um I
00:42feel like I'm just I used to live my life a little bit more afraid in the way that I think a lot of
00:47women do where you're like oh I'm supposed to be like this let me try to be it and then one day I
00:51was just like you know what I'm just going to be myself and like let the chips fall where they
00:55may and life got better so I feel like all I'm doing is just like being my very much myself being
01:01myself as loud as possible and hopefully that just opens up a little bit of space for someone else to
01:06be like maybe I could do that like I remember being a kid I never saw plus-size women on TV
01:11I never saw black women on TV who weren't suffering so it's like if I just do what I want to do which
01:17is have fun and make comedy then maybe someone sees that they're like oh it's a big black woman
01:21who's not suffering I can do it too I absolutely love that and that is why you are winning awards
01:27my friend so tell me a little bit you know your comedy has kind of even skyrocketed more with the
01:33election of Donald Trump which is a good thing but also it was a bad thing um tell me just a little
01:39bit about what's inspiring you today right now in your writing oh um you know anger really the honest
01:47answer is anger a lot of times you like see something or you read something and you're immediately
01:51so angry and it's like okay how do I turn this feeling into comedy and I think yeah just a lot
01:56of times just being honest and saying the thing that people are afraid to say makes people laugh
02:00and a lot of times that's just like what the fuck is happening why is it important to have women in
02:07the writers room especially we did a piece recently actually about endometriosis and about how like
02:13doctors have just not researched how to solve a lot of female reproductive issues and they're like yeah just
02:21take birth control it kind of fixes it what only kind of fixes it and also they're trying to take
02:26away our right to birth control so there are all these diseases that there's no cure for and when
02:31has anyone ever talked about that on television particularly on a comedy show because not only
02:36were there not women hosts a male host could very easily tell that story but somebody has to write it
02:41and there were not women in the rooms writing even when there were all male hosts I think like
02:46so many women are like oh finally they're talking about this this thing that I just talk about with
02:51my girlfriends or this thing we've been whispering about on the kitchen table there's finally someone
02:56who can say it on TV which is what white men have had always since the beginning of time
03:00do you think that by changing the house in the Senate things will change in general just flipping the house in the Senate when you flip the house in the Senate do you think that you know the next two years will be a little more bearable
03:19okay well first of all I don't think that's gonna happen I don't know if you saw our show last night but we talked about gerrymandering and how like
03:27like yeah it would it's gonna take literally this is a real number 15 million new voters would have to come out during this midterm in order for the Democrats to take back the house so if you're interested in taking back the house you need to go find a van load full of people who have not voted before bring them with you to vote and that might mean you have to get their driver's license or help them find their birth certificate or whatever it is in your state but I think people just assume that everyone's as mad as they are and assume that they are and assume that they're not going to be a
03:57that everyone's going to vote and that's actually not the case like if you want to see the Democrats take out you need to walk out of your house and go find somebody to vote with you
04:05I don't think that people realize that how do we get out of our bubble
04:10um you know I'm really lucky in my job that I get to talk to a lot of people because I interview people like you do and so I get to talk to people that I would never talk to otherwise
04:20I think that with the advent of social media we have a lot more access to different voices but it's very removed I think that if you can actually talk face to face with someone which is you know very scary
04:31um but that's the best way to like really understand what someone's motivations are and like voting is a perfect example a lot of my friends would be like how could anyone not vote
04:42I'm like well why don't you go find someone and sit down for a half an hour and talk to them and understand why they might have very interesting reasons that you just couldn't imagine because you haven't lived their life
04:52and then finally what is um one platform I know there's so many but that you are feeling particularly you know special about and that you want to focus on and maybe make your mission for the rest of 2018
05:06oh that's a good question I'm really on my like sisterhood right now like I feel like especially
05:12in our industry but in a lot of industries we women are just like grabbing onto each other and like
05:18like a line of linebackers going down the field uh so that's where that's where I'm at right now yeah
05:24thank you so much so good to chatting with you I love it here let's see if we can grab a quick picture
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