You're F@#ked in Hollywood if You're a Minority

This past Saturday I went to workshop presented by the WGA entitled "The Write Influence: Valuing Diversity". I wasn't expecting much, but I walked away from the experience motivated and more focused than I was before.

My favorite speaker at the event was Larry Wilmore, a writer/producer who’s worked on such hit shows as In Living Color, The Bernie Mac Show, The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air, and most recently The Office. The most candid topic he spoke about was Chris Rock’s show Everybody Hates Chris. He openly questioned why such a huge star as Chris Rock couldn’t even get his show onto CBS, but instead was relegated to UPN. Let’s be real, UPN is the ghetto of TV. I know some white folks that never watch the network and if they do they just recently started because of America's Top Model and Veronica Mars. This is the same network that aired Homeboys from Outer Space and that show about the slave butler of Abe Lincoln. Now what does it say about the prospects for Black shows when Chris Rock can’t even get sit at the grown up table? I won’t be surprised if CBS snatches the show from UPN next year.

Here are a statistics regarding writers in Hollywood for you to chew on:

· Television employment of women: 27%

· Television employment of all minorities combined: 10%

· Film employment of women: 18%

· Film employment of all minority groups combined: 6%

To make a long story short, your prospects for success in Hollywood if you’re a minority, a woman, or both are pretty fucked. But if you’re a minority you’ve been dealing with that situation your whole life. You just have to look past it, work your ass off to get in, and try to change things from the inside. That’s my plan, and I’m sticking to it