An Emotional Niecy Nash-Betts Dedicates Emmy To “Every Black And Brown Woman Who Has Gone Unheard Yet Overpoliced”

Jill Goldsmith
·2-min read
An Emotional Niecy Nash-Betts Dedicates Emmy To “Every Black And Brown Woman Who Has Gone Unheard Yet Overpoliced”

“I accept this award on behalf of every black and brown woman who has gone unheard yet overpoliced, like Glenda Cleveland, like Sandra Bland, like Breonna Taylor,” said Niecy Nash-Betts in a passionate acceptance speech at tonight’s Emmy Awards.

Nash-Betts won Best Supporting Actress in a Limited or Anthology Series or TV Movie for her role, noted above, of Glenda Cleveland in Netflix’ Monster: The Jeffrey Dahmer Story, who got the brush-off from police when she tried to alert them to the horror down the hall.

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“My job is to speak truth to power, and baby I am going to do it until the day I die,” she said.

In the series, Cleveland knew that really bad things were happening in Dahmer’s apartment alerting the police to the smell, the screams, but her calls were repeatedly and condescendingly dismissed, which just about breaks her heart. In one horrific scene, the cops send a drugged 14-year-old back into Dahmer’s apartment over Cleveland’s pleas that the boy is in mortal danger.

After its debut in the fall of 2022, Dahmer spent seven weeks in the Netflix Global Top 10.

Sandra Bland was a 28-year-old Black woman found hanged in a jail cell in Waller County, Texas in 2015, three days after being arrested during a traffic stop. Breonna Taylor was a a 26-year-old fatally shot in her Louisville, Kentucky apartment when at least seven police officers forced entry.

Nash-Betts won last year’s Critics Choice Award for the role.

The multifaceted thesp received accolades and an Emmy nomination for Ava DuVernay’s moving drama When They See Us about the Central Park Five. She’s got roots in comedy with unscripted police satire Reno 911!, and the 2021 TV movie spinoff Reno 911! The Hunt for QAnon that she produced.

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