Lena Waithe Brings Together Black Women in Hollywood for Sisterhood Brunches
Lena Waithe and a host of Black women writers in Hollywood gathered to discuss the work they do in supporting each other in an industry that's not built for their success. The numbers of Black women in television writing are so low you can't find statistics. In an op-ed article for The Guardian, Stefani Robinson (an Emmy-nominated writer for her work on "Atlanta"), lamented that only 4.8% of TV writers are Black. The problem is systemic. She wrote:
Black showrunners are hiring black writers, sure. But what about white showrunners (the majority of showrunners)? Why aren’t they hiring minorities to write on their shows? I don’t know. Something that I hear a lot from white writers is that they like to “write what they know”. In my experience, this also means “I’m white so I only know and want to write white things. I don’t want to write about minorities because I won’t do them justice.
