(Photo by Phil McCarten/Invision for the Television Academy/AP Images)[/caption]
Lena Waithe, actor and writer on Netflix’s Master of None, who deservedly made history when she won best writing for a comedy series at the Emmys Sunday night, quoted Congresswoman Maxine Walters with her “Let me reclaim my time’. Waithe the first African-American woman to win in the category, shared her victory with series creator Aziz Ansari who generously just stood by as she made a heartfelt speech of thanks
After thanking her mother for “inspiring the story,” and Ansari for “pushing” her to co-write the episode, and Netflix and Universal “for creating a beautiful playground” on which to work, she then thanked her girlfriend Alana Mayo, “I love you more than life itself.”
She also called out her “family” in the LGBTQIA community. “I see each and every one of you,” Waithe said. “The things that make us different, those are our superpowers. Every day when you walk out the door, put on your imaginary cape and go out there and conquer the world because the world would not be as beautiful as it is without us in it.”
“And to everybody out there who showed us so much love with this episode,” she concluded, “thank you for embracing a little Indian boy from South Carolina and a little queer black girl from the South Side of Chicago. We appreciate it more than you could ever know.”
The win had been been met by a roaring standing ovation, and you can see in the video below the way that the star-studded audience so genuinely embraced both Waithe’s historic victory and her speech.
