On Sunday evening, Tracee Ellis Ross won the Golden Globe for Best Actress in a Comedy for her scene-stealing performance on ABC’s Black-ish as efficient goofball Rainbow Johnson.
The category was stacked, and in winning it, Ross bested fellow nominees that included Jane the Virgin’s Gina Rodriguez and Crazy Ex-Girlfriend’s Rachel Bloom. She also became the first black woman to win Best Actress in a Comedy since Debbie Allen won for Fame in 1983.
So it’s fitting that Ellis Ross gave a beautiful acceptance speech that explicitly recognized women of color:
This is for all the women, women of color, and colorful people whose stories, ideas, thoughts are not always considered worthy and valid and important. But I want you to know that I see you. We see you.
It’s even more fitting that Ellis Ross gave this beautiful speech while being honored for her performance on Black-ish. The sitcom regularly addresses topics that other sitcoms don’t (or won’t, or can’t), as beautifully demonstrated with its season two episode “Hope.” The series’ standout installment to date — and Vox’s favorite television episode of 2016, period — centered on some of the most frank discussions about police brutality against unarmed black people to appear on scripted television, let alone on a family sitcom.
Naturally, Ellis Ross jumped at the chance to shout out her show:
It is an honor to be on this show ... to continue expanding the way we are seen and known, and to show the magic and the beauty and the sameness of a story and stories that are outside where the industry usually looks.
It was a gorgeous moment starring the first black woman to win this award in 33 years — and hopefully the Globes won’t wait another 33 years to honor another.
