Lena Waithe, who plays the hilarious Denise on the Netflix series Master of None, just made Emmy history as the first African American woman to be nominated in the Outstanding Writing for a Comedy Series category.
The writer/actress racked up the nomination for the showās season two episode, āThanksgiving,ā which she penned alongside co-creator Aziz Ansari.
āI didnāt know I was the first black woman until people were saying that and saying it to me, and I was like, āIs that true?'ā Waithe said, according to LA Times. āThe first woman of color was Mindy Kaling; I think that was for an episode of The Office she wrote. And Iām the first African American woman. And to be in 2017, it speaks to where we are in terms of, I think weāre making progress in our industry, but I think what this says to me is we still have a lot of work to do. And Iām fighting to make sure it happensā¦ā
Master Of None is a great show, and Waitheās nomination is well-deserved.
āIām the first black woman to be nominated,ā Waithe said. āHopefully, not the last. Weāve got to work on that.ā ā we hope so too!
