“I’m Tired Of Talking About Diversity”
Amen to that. The quotation is from Kenya Barris (pictured), the creator of ABC’s hit comedy “Black-ish.” He was speaking at the Television Critics Association summer press tour on Thursday afternoon. When one reporter posed a question about what percentage of the ABC comedy’s audience is African-American — and in the phrasing of his question, noted that there was initially “uncertainty about how [the show] was going to be received by the African-American community” and that Donald Trump had “weighed and tweeted something about it being racist” — during the broadcast network’s last session of the day, Barris did not hold back.
“I will be so happy when diversity is not a word. I have the best job in the world and I am constantly having to talk about diversity. I have the best actors. It’s ridiculous,” he said, carefully crafting his reply. “We’re in a time when everything is about black and white, and this and that. We get opportunities and we are happy to be the people who can step up and say, ‘We can do this.’ But these are amazing actors. It doesn’t matter who is watching our show. The fact is that they’re watching it.”
