Love scrolling through audition sites and seeing the sudden increase of roles for Black actors, but if I see one more casting call with the words “sassy,” “no-nonsense,” or “feisty,” to describe... -checks notes- ONLY THE BLACK WOMEN I’m gonna put my head through a fucking wall.

THIS is what we mean when we say there aren’t diverse roles for Black people.

There are basically 4 roles for Black women:
-Sassy/Fiesty ride or die BFF
-Maid/Mammy/Slave
-Heart of Gold Mom
-“I’m tough because life is hard, but touch me & I crumble” super smart side character/gf

If my only options are to play the best friend with comebacks and no personality, or the hard on the outside soft on the inside love interest, then you’re not seeing all that I can be.

Yes I HAVE played slaves and recently emancipated slaves and house maids in the past 3 YEARS.

Because those are some of the only roles that are STILL open to me. It’s that, or characters who are ACTUALLY described as “ratchet” or “hood rats,” or women who have zero emotional capacities because they’re so traumatized by their own Blackness and femininity.

We are ALWAYS r*ped, or pregnant, or addicts, or dreaming of “a better world.”

When will someone step up and WRITE that better world? When will you write joyful, talented, thriving, and loving Black women? When will you write us as we are, and not as a metaphor for pain or to

show that you have “empathy” or to tick some diversity box? If you ONLY see Black people in your work/the things you consume as a vehicle for pain or a metaphor for oppression, you have fucked up. If I am ONLY a side character, with no history and no future, you have fucked up.

If I am ONLY there to push a white (usually male) character’s story forward, or to show someone else how to love, or be themselves, or to absolve them AND you of your white guilt, YOU HAVE FUCKED UP.

And don’t even get me started on how you write our men.

This is so much of the reason that I started writing my own work. Because I’m tired of being crushed into the same roles over and over again.

Black women are heroes. We are goddesses and queens and we deserve better. Write about that.