Does this also apply to his co-creator (who was the one who came up with the idea for the show in the first place) and his head writer, both of whom are white?

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2015/05/12/lee-daniels-hollywood-reporter-roundtable_n_7267718.html

Lee Daniels: 'I Hate White People Writing For Black People'
The Huffington Post | By Brennan Williams
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Posted: 05/12/2015 3:35 pm EDT Updated: 05/18/2015 1:59 pm EDT

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The Hollywood Reporter
Earlier this year, director Lee Daniels managed to break records with the success of his show “Empire.” In addition to netting a cult-like following and record breaking ratings on Fox, the drama also changed the representation of black characters on television.

During a recent roundtable discussion explored in the latest issue of The Hollywood Reporter, Daniels and five of drama television’s most notable writers and producers – including Beau Willimon (“House of Cards”), Damon Lindelof (“The Leftovers”), Alex Gansa (“Homeland”), Michelle King (“The Good Wife”), and Sarah Treem (“The Affair”) -- discussed various topics affecting their industry, including the lack of diversity in a majority of Hollywood’s writing rooms.

Daniels revealed his candid thoughts following the moderator's question on whether the panel felt more pressure to fill their respective shows and writers' room with a diverse group of talent following the success of “Empire.”

“I don't know what gives me more pleasure: watching my story unfold or going in and watching a room full of black people talking for me and writing words for black people,” he said. “I hate white people writing for black people; it's so offensive. So we go out and look specifically for African-American voices. Yes, it's all about reverse racism!”

Prior to “Empire’s” breakout season, the show was noted for having the most diverse writers rooms in network television with six of the nine writers being people of color.

“It wasn’t as if we sat down and said, ‘Let’s find the best African-American writers for this show,’” Francie Calfo, head of Imagine Television, the studio behind “Empire,” told Variety in January. “We were just looking for the best writers.”

Read more of the panel’s Hollywood Reporter discussion here.

I am working on a project in which I am writing for a diverse cast. There are men, women, gay, transgendered character and I am super sensitive writing for people who are so different from me. As I try to write for these characters all I can think of is the audacity of white male writers who seem to do it with reckless abandonment.

Do you think it ever crossed the mind of any of those white writers for Good Times, Sanford & Son, Jeffersons were torn about writing for Black Characters? I doubt it.


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"Everyone has a plan until you punch them in the face. Then they don't have a plan anymore." (c) Mike Tyson


"One of the most important things in life is what Judge Learned Hand described as 'that ever-gnawing inner doubt as to whether you're

either black advisors or at least one black person in the room.

Those shows also taped in front of almost- or all-black studio audiences, so the production would know what did & didn't work on the stage.

If you're looking for examples of black shows written with little to no regard for how black characters should sound, you'll want to look at "Family Matters", for which either Bickley or Warren said they had no black perspective to write from and didn't care to try and find one.

You'll therefore notice the characters are written very, VERY "clear" for the first four seasons and then suddenly become suspiciously "blacker" in Season 5 when the show was moved from Lorimar to Warner Bros. TV - by this time, FM was losing in the ratings to "Fresh Prince" (which it would forevermore, lol) and changes were instituted.

he meant shows written by whites exclusively.

fuck you.

Get over it Lee. He should probably worry about writing better for his own shows cause Empire is never gonna be known for its writing.




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"Jesus is my Lord and Savior. And if you believe in him, he can be your's too."

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"Everyone has a plan until you punch them in the face. Then they don't have a plan anymore." (c) Mike Tyson


"One of the most important things in life is what Judge Learned Hand described as 'that ever-gnawing inner doubt as to whether you're

for mainstream "whte" shows.

These comments, however ,are problematic in that it presumes _no_ white writers can ever properly write black characters.

Plus, while yes, Empire has a mostly non-white writing staff, five out of the 12 season 1 scripts were ultimately written by white people. And, again, the lead writer and the co-creator are both white.

I think I understand what Daniels was trying to say (because he's talking about the William Bickleys and Michael Warrens of the world, and I get that), but he said it completely wrong.

I get what he was trying to say, but he did not articulate it clearly enough.

____________________________________
Podcast Now on iTunes and Google:
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Twitter: @nipsey @JTTOUPodcast

Last 3 things I watched:

White Lotus Season 2 (HBO Max): B
Warrior Nun Season 2 (Netflix): C-
The Peripheral (

I've said before, there is nothing unique about the white american experience. Meaning, everything white americans have experienced black americans, and asian americans, latino americans, etc. can identify with and have experienced. There is no unique white american experience.

Same isn't true for black americans, and asian americans, latino americans, etc.

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"Everyone has a plan until you punch them in the face. Then they don't have a plan anymore." (c) Mike Tyson


"One of the most important things in life is what Judge Learned Hand described as 'that ever-gnawing inner doubt as to whether you're

ask Paula Deen.

ask the Daughters of the American Revolution.

ask the folks who get down w/the KKK...and their families.

that's just the tip of the iceberg.

fuck you.

They go more into depth about the subject. In any event, despite Lee Daniels' faults as a creator of entertainment, he hit the other writers/producers hard here.

http://www.hollywoodreporter.com/news/lee-daniels-damon-lindelof-a-794430

DANIELS Are there African-American writers on your show?

TREEM There is one writer of color, but he's not African-American.

DANIELS Are there any African-American writers on your show?

GANSA There are not.

DANIELS How about yours?

KING Yeah.

DANIELS How many?

KING Last season there were two, but one of them went off to create her own pilot.

DANIELS Good. How many on your show? I'm just curious.

WILLIMON How many women do you have?

DANIELS We have three women.

WILLIMON How many Asian-Americans do you have?

DANIELS We have no Asian-Americans.

WILLIMON Just, it's a weird question. But we have zero African-Americans in our writers room of six.

DANIELS I'm not here pointing a finger. I'm just curious.

WILLIMON There are so many different ways to talk about or measure diversity, and not all stories are going to tackle the entire breadth of the diversity of the world.

Beau, how so?

WILLIMON A lot of times the story is about picking and choosing a sliver of the world that you might tell a story about, and that might just be about Jewish people during the Holocaust, where you're not going to see any African-Americans. Or, if you're in a concentration camp that's just men, you're not going to see any women. I think that our responsibility is to tell the truth, and if you're telling the truth about your given sliver, however narrow or wide it is, then you're contributing to the overall diversity of our collective story.

KING I was going to say last season we had two African-American women on our writing staff, and one of them said, "I've never been in a room where there's another African-American woman." We weren't hiring for "diversity," we were hiring the best writer at any given moment. But it was a telling remark.

DANIELS It's repulsive is what it is. It's inexcusable.

LINDELOF Let me preface this by saying that I take full responsibility for every decision that I have made professionally. That said, if I'm staffing a show, I'm going to get sent 40 scripts for people, and of those 40 scripts, how many of them were written by any people of color? Or women, for that matter? The pool that I'm being told that I should be picking from is a majority white male pool. And if you walk down the corridors of WME, CAA, UTA, you're not going to see a lot of black agents, and they're the ones who sending me those scripts. The most significant impact that we can have is to empower people, whether writers, producers or directors, who don't look like us so that they can make hiring decisions. The Leftovers has a very strong female voice, and I sought out that balance behind the camera. Mimi Leder is our directing producer, and she said, "I'm hiring women directors." The pool that she has to choose from for episodic directors is literally 20-to-1, but because she's saying that's really important and they're out there and we're going to find them, it's happening.

DANIELS Good for her, I like her.

LINDELOF But that's how it happens. And it's great because basically all the African-American writers who are on Empire are now going to learn and they're going to have an opportunity to go and create their own shows.

DANIELS It's so beautiful to walk in that room now because I thought I was the only one. There are the Spike Lees, the John Singletons, you know that there are those, but you really believe that you are the only one until you see these submissions of incredible writers.

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Podcast Now on iTunes and Google:
http://tinyurl.com/JTTOU-iTunesSubscribe
Twitter: @nipsey @JTTOUPodcast

Last 3 things I watched:

White Lotus Season 2 (HBO Max): B
Warrior Nun Season 2 (Netflix): C-
The Peripheral (

Lee is a mess, talking about "I fight with my actors, we pull weaves, etc."

He always tries too hard. Every time I hear him speak, he reminds me of Michael Davis.

Fun is the new gritty