Nobody Black Won An Emmy Last Night

I don't believe in begging anyone to love you. Even if that "anyone" is an award show.

Last night the 2026 Emmy Awards came and went, and while some Black people were nominated in major categories, no one won a thing.

From Variety:

On Monday at the 78th Emmy Awards, in the lead and supporting races for drama and comedy, in addition to lead actor and actress in a limited series, all 10 actors who crossed the stage came from outside an underrepresented community. The other two, supporting actor and actress in a limited series, which were handed out a week earlier at the Creative Arts ceremonies, shifted off the main show this year in a reshuffling of five categories that drew Hollywood’s guilds’ ire, but did not change the math.

The only performers of color to win an on-camera or voice Emmy this cycle also did so at the Creative Arts. Ernest Harden Jr. won guest actor in a drama for the medical series “The Pitt” on HBO Max, and Octavia Spencer won for narrating “Lost Women of Alaska.”

Also from Variety:

By Variety’s count, 17 performers of color were nominated in the lead and supporting acting races this year, down from 28 a year ago, a 39% decline. The figure for actors and hosts of color peaked in 2021 at 49, the last time the field produced #EmmysSoWhite.

It's something that hasn't happened since 2021: an Emmys this white. But it's also happened multiple times throughout Emmy history, so no one should be surprised.

They should be insulted.

Sh*t I Don't Like

I don't watch most award shows. Not the Oscars. Not the Emmys. Not the Grammys. I might catch glimpses here and there online, or get trapped sitting through the Grammys because I'm at home with my TV-loving dad. But on my own? Never.

Why? While I understand the journalistic merit of covering award shows, I don't believe in supporting something that doesn't support people who look like me.

Of course, many of these award shows have made changes and promises, even hiring some high-profile people I know, hoping to make improvements.

And yet, this shit keeps happening—from the Emmys to the Golden Globes to the Grammys.

All around Hollywood, the same song.

A Club Not Worth Joining

After Jay-Z took the Grammy stage in 2024 to implore the academy to treat his wife, Beyoncé—the last monoculture global superstar—fairly, I was aghast. He was railing for her to win Album of the Year from the same people who once gave that award to Beck over Bey's groundbreaking, eponymous album. (You know? The one that signaled her depth and maturity as an artist that she dropped with no promo in the middle of the night?) And all I could think was: Why?

Together, the Carters are a whole billionaire, an American success story, and a multi-hyphenate, rags-to-riches dream. They have more talent and taste than a plurality of the people Jay-Z addressed that night. In fact, I would wager most people in that room would have traded a finger or two for an ounce of their fame, influence, and wealth. And the main media buzz, as always, was whether Beyoncé would even attend! Why should the Carters care what anyone who wouldn't acknowledge them and their gifts thinks? Isn't their lack of interest nullifying? Isn't any club that wouldn't have them as a member not a club worth joining?

I'm tired, y'all.

Beggars and Choosers

I can't watch Black people beg to have their art recognized by people who wouldn't know good Black art if it pulled a Will Smith and slapped them across the face.

I don't believe in begging for approval from people who reward "Blackness" but not Black artists and performers. Who love HBO's Euphoria, but wouldn't honor Zendaya for giving a career-defining performance as Rue in its final season. (Never mind that this final season was just some white man's War on Drugs, Blaxplotation fantasy. Blech. But Zendaya was exceptional, as always.) But these are the same type of people who, during the 2019 Oscars, picked the racially toothless, white-centered nonsense flick Green Book over Spike Lee's provocative BlacKKKlansman and Ryan Coogler's billion-dollar Marvel hit, Black Panther.

These so-called "tastemakers" love our culture, clothing, music, film, and art when it's remixed, recycled, and watered down for the masses by someone who has the "complexion for the protection," but if we do it. It's ghetto. It's tacky. It's trash.

Awards shows are trash.

So I say, don't go.

Black Presence Is A Present

I'd rather see Black actors, writers, producers, directors, singers, performers, and artists pack the room and support the NAACP Image Awards—or any Black award show from the BET Awards to The Root 100 to Essence's Women In Hollywood—than get disrespected. I'd rather we built up our own. At least you know your people get it. The work you put into it. The quality of the writing and humor. The mastery of the music. We know how our cream rises to the top, then crosses over and loses its 1985 Emmy dreams to Jane Curtin in Kate & Allie—a show I don't even remember.

But I bet you'll never forget who she beat: the legendary Phylicia Rashad and her iconic performance as Claire Huxtable, for which she was nominated twice in 1985 and '86 but didn't win.

I know it's tempting to show up for Hollywood's biggest nights. I know your agents, publicists, managers, lawyers, and team all want you to go. But why attend and give the networks all these ratings from your talents and visage, only to have them play in your face—every time? Your presence is their present, and they will gladly take it and give you nothing back in return.

So, take a page out of the Fresh Prince's playbook from when rap was being denied respect at the Grammys in the 1989s, and refuse to play their game. I promise you, in your evening of absence, they will learn.

And if they don't?

You're still Zendaya. You're still Beyoncé. You're still among the most famous and successful performers in the world.

You'll be better than fine.

You'll be the best.