Viola Davis‘ emotional Emmys acceptance speech moved many to tears and inspired the audience to rise to a standing ovation, but apparently not everyone was impressed with her words.
Davis quoted Harriet Tubman as she spoke of the need for more important roles for black women, while simultaneously praising her peers like Kerry Washington, Halle Berry and Taraji P. Henson for helping to open up doors for future generations.
“The only thing that separates women of color from anyone else is opportunity,” said Davis. “You cannot win an Emmy for roles that are simply not there.”
More:Viola Davis’ Emmys speech gets ignorantly bashed by General Hospital actress
As moving as her words were, and as many goosebumps we got from them, Whoopi Goldberg revealed in a recent interview with BET that she doesn’t understand or necessarily agree with Davis’ thoughts on opportunity for women of color, because it doesn’t really relate to her own career.
“I’m not sure what it means. Opportunity to do what? Do you know what I mean?” Goldberg said. “The truth of the matter is, there’s [sic] been plenty of opportunities.”
Goldberg goes on to cite Washington and her show, Scandal, as an example before saying, “But they didn’t vote for her. So maybe the question is: What do you have to do to get voted on? That’s the thing. It’s not that the opportunity is not there, because we’ve had lots of opportunities.”
More: Whoopi Goldberg has a change of heart on Bill Cosby’s innocence (VIDEO)
Goldberg also theorized that Davis’ Emmy will actually help women of color obtain more roles. “Everybody wants an Emmy,” she said. “Studios… So they’ll hire more black women.”
More: Whoopi Goldberg has a controversial opinion about Rachel Dolezal (VIDEO)
Goldberg’s opinion about Davis’ speech was not well received by many on Twitter.
https://twitter.com/DBurrell200/status/652173876340879360
https://twitter.com/jadedunni/status/652186222379552768
https://twitter.com/franbeard/status/654286749795921920
https://twitter.com/raptown2/status/652254690672013312
But some stood in solidarity with Goldberg and sent tweets that backed up the host of The View.
https://twitter.com/GQ2021/status/654038623315103744
https://twitter.com/DC_Dutches/status/652140048104554496
@BET you can't say there's been plenty of opportunity & use Scandal as an example which is only three years old. But I get the argument.
— ✨Daneisha✨ (@DuhKneeShuhh) October 8, 2015
Watch Goldberg’s full statement in BET’s tweet below.
https://twitter.com/BET/status/652138641045630977
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