Victoria's Restless For Soap Diversity

I had the pleasure of meeting Victoria Rowell during my airline days and watching her on one of my fave soap the Young And The Restless.

Now in conjunction with the Urban League's Marc Morial and Dr. Cornel West,  Rowell is working tirelessly on a mission to fight the decline in diversity in the daytime television world in front of and behind the cameras.

She played Drucilla Winters on the most watched soap amongst African-American viewers, but is distressed about what she calls 'Soap Opera Apartheid'

The author of Secrets of a Soap Opera Diva was getting major pushback from people in that world as well.

“I was proactive around closing the chasm at the lack of diversity behind the lens as well in front of the lens. There is tremendous pushback behind the lens not to bring me back,“ Rowell said during an interview back in August .  “Because I will put in play what has now disappeared. In 38 years, there has never been one Black writer, producer or director and it goes on and on. We have no Black hair or makeup [person].”

She's got a point.  Currently General Hospital's Michele Val Jean and One Life to Live's Aida Croal are the only African American writers in daytime television.  Note they are both with ABC soaps.

Y&R , CBS and its parent company Sony of course denied the soap opera apartheid exists and defensively pointed to the five African descended actors and the characters they play on the show.   But Kristoff St. John, Darius McCrary, Tonya Lee Williams, Tatyana Ali and Julia Pace Mitchell are on so infrequently if you blink you'll miss them.  

I got so tired of not seeing them on a regular basis I quit watching the show and started watching All My Children again since they brought Darnell Williams and Debbi Morgan back in 2008 and have more African-American characters on it again with meaningful storylines .

Rowell's campaign has begun to get results in the face of growing pissivity over the situation with African American soap opera fans, increased media attention and escalating boycott threats.  The Young and the Restless hired their first African-American writer in the history of the show in Susan Dansby.  


The veteran soap writer was given a six week deal that will start in February.  Rowell and the Urban League are pushing for that to be extended far longer than that considering Dansby's distinguished track record in the soap world.

But as Victoria said in the upcoming February 1 Soap Opera Digest issue that she will be the cover girl for:  


"I do not enjoy having to change lines to create an authenticity for the black family."

Nor should she have to.  

The State of The Trinity/Virginia Prince Awards

One of the things I was looking for news wise out of last month's IFGE Conference in Tucson and I look forward to hearing about when an IFGE Conference convenes is who won the Trinity and Virginia Prince Awards.

I didn't find out about the Class of 2008 recipients until after the IFGE conference was over, and only because there was some controversy about Cheryl Ann Costa's acceptance speech remarks.

But my question to the IFGE board is this: If the Trinity and the Virginia Prince are considered the highest honors our community give someone for meritorious service to it, isn't that a newsworthy event we should be shouting from the rooftops?

I was set to write Bilerico and TransGriot blog posts publicizing the award winners. But I can't do that if I don't know who won them in a timely fashion.

I'm also concerned that as a 2006 Trinity winner, I have not had any input or been asked to join whatever committee oversees that process. The fact that we've only had three African-American winners of this award, with none of them African-American transmen speaks volumes as to why I'm concerned about the lack of input. You can't tell me that there aren't people of color who are doing yeoman's work for the transgender community that don't deserve at least some consideration for the Trinity or the Virginia Prince.

Now if the Trinity and Virginia Prince are supposed to be our community's highest award, then I submit that one group of people who definitely need to be in the loop on either choosing them or suggesting worthy candidates for these awards is former Trinity/Virginia Prince winners.

I would also suggest that they automatically get that right for life once they win either award. If we wish to increase the diversity of the winners of this award, it might help to have the only three African-American winners on that panel and other people of color as well.

We also need to do a better job publicizing the award. For example, the NAACP Image Awards get major television exposure, so do the GLAAD Awards. If we're going to dispel the myths our opponents throw at us we need to seize every opportunity for positive publicity or that paints our community in a positive light.

What could be more positive and uplifting than to have your community's heroes and heroines get the publicity they deserve as they win these awards? It doesn't
necessarily have to be a TV awards show, but most definitely a press release and a television camera or a newspaper photographer needed to be on hand trumpeting the awards.

This was a positive news opportunity that was missed, and we definitely needed it in light of the negativity flowing from conservative pundits and fundies concerning the recent Thomas Beattie story, the continuing negative attacks we get from our 'frenemy' Barney Frank, other anti-inclusionary ENDA GLB peeps, and elsewhere from other transgender haters.

While I'm making the case as a Trinity winner for better handling and promotion of this community's signature award, I'm also sounding a warning as well. One of the reasons the NAACP Image Awards were created was because of the lack of diversity in mainstream awards shows. Don't think that transpeople of color haven't noted and aren't happy about the lack of diversity when it comes to choosing these awards. You may find yourself one day looking at an African-American, Asian-Pacific Islander or Latino/Latina version of the Trinity if things don't expeditiously improve diversity wise.

We really can't afford as a community any more to be fumbling positive news ops if we wish to make federal transgender rights coverage in our lifetimes a reality.