00:00I think the thing that drives me crazy is always hearing people say like we
00:04don't there aren't enough black female writers like we can't find them where
00:08are they and I feel like this group is the proof
00:22we were all relatively early in our careers we often felt like unicorns
00:27where it was oh there are very few black female writers in town and someone asked
00:32me to recommend some sort of mid-level female writers for a job and I was
00:36appalled to realize I didn't know many names and so we all decided to fix that
00:41that we should know each other and be supporting each other and out of that
00:44this wonderful group of women was born
00:49I think the big thing for me is that that we all have the same story
00:57or the same narrative oh I want I need a black woman because we have a black
01:01female character on the show and so we kind of have to fill that quota that to
01:05me I think is the most frustrating thing nobody wants to be the one voice and be
01:09singled out if you have more than one person you can get more layers more
01:13nuance you can tell different stories and dig deeper and like you said explore
01:18different perspectives it's so it's not all from one narrow lens
01:28I always say for showrunners you have to make it a priority I understand like when
01:32you take over a show or when your show gets greenlit there's a hundred million
01:36things that are thrown at you at once and you have to prioritize and if you
01:40truly want your writers room to reflect a diverse writers room then it needs to be a priority
01:44give young black writers a shot to showrun their shows because there's a
01:49discrepancy in terms of you know no shade but like Lena Dunham was running her own
01:54show and like I had not paired with a showrunner so I don't think these
01:57execs even realize they're doing it and so I would just say give a black writer a
02:02chance to showrun their show and give them a strong number two challenge the
02:05studio you're with to improve whatever pipeline they're getting the writers
02:09through or you're not going to go through them for the recommendations I think we
02:12can continue to challenge people to dig deeper to find those writers
02:19get outside of your comfort zone I'm always telling my sister go sit in a
02:22different cafe than the one in your neighborhood or go like just get out
02:25there and meet people of and I think especially in this day and age and this
02:31time in our country get out there and meet people who are dissimilar from you
02:35have a conversation get to know them we establish that sort of human
02:38connection that I feel like we might be losing our days you'd be surprised what
02:42you learn
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