Marla Gibbs, Michael Che

Last night’s Emmy’s telecast sparked debate on social media after Saturday Night Live comic Michael Che handed out “reparation Emmys” to old skool Black actors.

Che criticized the Emmy’s 70-year history of ignoring worthy Black actors who he believed were worthy of Emmy Awards.

In a comedy skit, Che handed out awards to worthy actors including The Jeffersons star Marla Gibbs (pictured above); Jimmy Walker (Junior on Good Times); Jaleel White, whom he called “the OG black nerd.” Che told White, “If it wasn’t for you, there’d be no Donald Glover. There’d be no Kanye West. There’d be no Obama.”

He also recognized actor Kadeem Hardison, whom he thanked for inspiring Black “brothas” to go to college; and character actress Tichina Arnold, whom he described as “pound for pound the best sitcom actress I have ever seen.”

Loyal reader Tonia wrote in to vent her frustration after watching the Emmy Awards last night.

Tonia writes:

“At tonight’s Emmy’s, SNL co-host Che-whomever did a disgusting “skit” using the tern reparations, which is disrespectful, hateful under the guise of being funny…. It’s not %^&% funny.

All of you black bloggers need to get in their behinds about it.

They tiptoed around it from the beginning of the show… But this was just sickening and all of those actors who thought it was OK out to be called out to the carpet.

They dragged Cardi for doing it on NBC, These people are growing and should have known better…

And those black actors in the audience sat there. Eddie Murphy walked out of the Oscars. Why WON’T they?

THIS IS RACIST! HOW LONG ARE WE GONNA PUT UP WITH THIS BS? THE EFF OUTTA HERE!

***I’m writing to you bc you really do try to tackle the hard stuff… thanks for reading this.”

 

Photos by Adriana M. Barraza/WENN.com, NBC