Debbie Allen at the Golden Globes, 1983 (YouTube)
Way back in 1983 (34 years ago!), actress-choreographer Debbie Allen won the Golden Globe Award for Best Musical or Comedy Actress. Allen starred in “Fame,” the TV series based off the 1980 movie.
She was the only Black woman to win this award until “Blackish” actress Tracee Ellis Ross (yes, Diana Ross’s daughter) won earlier this week during the
Tracee Ellis Ross, Golden Globes 2017 (Elle)
Last night at the Golden Globe Awards, the always amazeballs Tracee Ellis Ross won the award for Best Actress — Television Series Musical or Comedy. Ross plays Bow Johnson, badass doctor and matriarch of the Johnson family in the ABC comedy “Blackish.”
Ross is also the first Black woman to win that category in 34 years. The last Black woman to win in that category was Debbie Allen for “Fame.”
In her historic moment, Ross’s acceptance speech celebrated inclusion, especially for women of color:
This is for all the women, women of color, and colorful people whose stories, ideas, thoughts are not always considered worthy and valid and important. But I want you to know that I see you. We see you.
Congratulations, Tracee, and keep being you!
Hillary Clinton (Slate)
Even though Hillary Clinton lost the election (though not the popular vote!), one of her tweets ranked third in most-shared globally. So…consolation prize?
Twitter revealed its top trends last week, and shared Clinton’s tweet that’s been shared multiple times around the world:
Hillary Clinton’s tweet (The Hollywood Reporter)
According to Twitter, the tweet of the already-iconic quote has been re-tweeted 634K+ times and favorited 1M+ times.
Viola Desmond (The Canadian Encyclopedia)
Canada has always been on the progressive side of things, and now it’s extended to their money. The country has elected to put a black woman on one of their bills.
Desmond will be featured on the Canadian $10 bill:
According to the Bank of Canada, there are 132 million $10 bills in circulation right now. The number of new banknotes printed annually fluctuates from year to year.
Said woman Viola Desmond was a civil rights activist. In Dec. 1946, she bought a floor seat in the main house of a movie theater. The main house was reserved for whites, whereas Black movie-goers were supposed to sit upstairs in the balcony. Desmond was arrested and jailed, on account of not paying the tax difference between the two seats. The tax difference was…one cent. One. Cent.
In 1947, Desmond tried to appeal the charge and lost. She dies in 1965 at age 50, and was granted a public pardon and apology in 2010.
It’s important to note that Desmond’s act came nine years before Rosa Parks gave up her bus seat in the United States, setting off the U.S.’s civil rights movement.
As Ryerson’s Office of Equity, Diversity and Inclusion Staffer Darrell Bowden puts it:
“Viola was not the Rosa Parks of Canada. Rosa Parks was the Viola Desmond of America.”
Until this point, the only woman on Canadian money has been Queen Elizabeth of England. But Desmond is the first Canadian woman who will be on Canadian money. She’s also the first one who won’t be part of a group: Canada’s Famous Five suffragettes graved the $50 bill from 2004 until 2011.
Desmond beat out 26K+ submissions from the public. The bill with her face will go into circulation in 2018.
South Carolina Governor Nikki Haley (Politico)
President-elect Donald Trump (I threw up a little just now writing that) has named his pick for U.S. ambassador to the United Nations. He’s selected Republican Governor of South Carolina Nikki Haley. Haley is the first woman Trump has selected for his administration.
Haley’s also the first minority Trump has selected: She’s of Indian descent, and her parents are Sikh.
Haley has served two terms as governor of South Carolina, and is known for advocating removing the Confederate flag from South Carolina’s State Capitol grounds.
She is the first woman governor of South Carolina, as well as the first minority governor of the state.
According to CNN, “Haley will keep serving as governor until the Senate confirms her nomination.”
Ashley Graham’s January 2017 Vogue U.K. cover (Vogue UK)
Model Ashley Graham is busting boundaries left and right. Earlier this year, she covered Maxim and the coveted Sports Illustrated Swimsuit Issue. Now, she’s landed the cover of the fashion bible of the U.K., the British version of Vogue. Shot by famed photographer Patrick Demarchelier, Graham’s cover will be for the January 2017 issue.
Graham is a plus-size model, so her covering these storied publications shows that the fashion industry is coming around to including a wider variety of body types. Let’s hope American Vogue sees this, and follows suit.
Graham’s cover for British Vogue arrives on newsstands today.
CoverGirl Nura Afia (Today)
CoverGirl is making strides in inclusivity in their marketing outreach this year. Earlier, the brand announced beauty blogger James Charles as its first male spokesmodel. Now, CoverGirl has tapped beauty vlogger Nura Afia. Afia wears a hijab as part of her Muslim faith.
The 24-year-old will be the first spokesmodel to wear a hijab. Afia will appear in a commercial, and will serve as an ambassador for the So Lashy! Blast Pro Mascara. She hopes that her wearing hijab will normalize Muslims for the rest of America.
Afia began posting makeup tutorials on YouTube in 2011. She now has 215K subscribers and 13M video views. But this isn’t Afia’s first major brand partnership: she’s previously partnered with Revlon.
Beauty that’s inclusive to Muslims is massive, and poised to grow even bigger. According to Ogilvy Noor, by way of The New York Times:
The Muslim personal cosmetics and care market is now worth more than $54 billion, a figure that is expected to reach $80 billion by 2020.
Asian-American voter (The Huffington Post)
Recent data shows that Asian-Americans are leaving the Republican party to vote Democrat.
Through the 1990s, Asian-Americans were more likely to vote Republican. It’s thought that Asian-American generally voted for the Republican candidate due to connecting with fiscally and socially conservative platforms. Asian-Americans voted Republican around 55% of the time during the 1992 presidential election between Republican George H.W. Bush and Democrat Bill Clinton (who ended up winning). The 2000 election became a turning point when more Asian-Americans began supporting the Democrat candidate. In 2012, Barack Obama won with Asian voters by “nearly 50 percentage points.” Karthick Ramakrishnan of the National Asian American Survey attributes this outcome to Democrats actively trying to win the Asian-American vote.
Party Identification Among Asian-Americans (NPR)
Over time, Asian-Americans gravitating towards the Democrats doesn’t seem like a big deal, and more like a natural shift over time. Except that it might not be. This fact becomes more important in this election where surveys have shown Asian-Americans rejecting many points of Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump’s platform: keeping out and deporting immigrants, diplomacy with China, among other aspects.
But it’s too early to tell whether this shift for Asian-Americans toward the Democrats is a blip on the radar or foretelling a larger, more long-term trend. According to Ramakrishnan, it’s too early to tell. In 2015, 47% of Asian-Americans identified as politically independent.
In October 2016, a survey found that registered Asian-American voters supported Hillary Clinton over Trump by a 4-to-1 lead.
Richard and Mildred Loving, ‘The Loving Story’ (Documentary Daze)
Documentary “The Loving Story” was released in 2011, and examined the lives of Richard and Mildred Loving. An interracial couple from Virginia, they were arrested for violating Virginia’s anti-miscegenation law shortly after their wedding in 1958. The film examines their struggle to remain married and able to live in Virginia, which led to the historic Loving v. Virginia Supreme Court decision of 1967.
The film was directed by Nancy Buirski, premiered in 2012, and won a Peabody Award.
Krysten Ritter as Jessica Jones (IndieWire)
Hey Hollywood, you know all that bluster about how you can’t find female directors/writers, etc.? You know how you keep saying you want to diversify but you just can’t? Even though you’re trying really hard? Well, “Jessica Jones” is calling your bluff and raising it.
The Netflix series, which focuses on the Marvel character of the same name (played by Krysten Ritter), has been praised for its depictions of sexual assault and female friendship, among other aspects. And now showrunner Melissa Rosenberg has thrown down the gauntlet and declared that no one shall sit in the director’s chair unless their chromosomes are of the XX variety.
This isn’t the first time a TV series has hired solely women directors to direct its episodes. That would be “Queen Sugar,” co-produced and written by Ava DuVernay (who’s the first Black woman to direct a $100M movie). And that happened earlier this year.
No word yet on who’ll be gracing the director’s chair for the second season of “Jessica Jones” (and also no release date), but I can’t wait to find out.
But one thing’s for certain: Your move, Hollywood.
Sex & Stats: Where Numbers Come to Bang 