Niecy Nash-Betts is using her Emmy Award win to call attention to Breonna Taylor and other “Black and brown” women who have “gone unheard and overpoliced.”
The “Dahmer – Monster: The Jeffrey Dahmer Story” star took home an Emmy on Monday in Los Angeles in the Best Supporting Actress in a Limited/Anthology Series or TV Movie category for her role in the Netflix show.
“I’m a winner, baby!” the 53-year-old actor exclaimed.
“And you know who else I want to thank? I want to thank me. For believing in me, and saying what they said I couldn’t do,” she said to laughs from the audience.
Nash-Betts then struck a more serious tone, telling the crowd, “I accept this award on behalf of every Black and brown woman who has gone unheard and overpoliced.”
“Like Glenda Cleveland,” she said of serial killer Dahmer’s neighbor, whom Nash-Betts portrayed in the series.
“Like Sandra Bland. Like Breonna Taylor,” Nash-Betts continued.
Bland died in a jail cell after she was arrested during a traffic stop in 2015.
Taylor was shot and killed in 2020 when Louisville, Ky., police executed a no-knock warrant on her apartment, which investigators later found to be fraudulent.
“As an artist, my job is to speak truth to power,” Niecy said, “and baby I’m going to do it to the day I die!”