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Riz Ahmed’s Speech After Becoming The 1st Man Of South-Asian Descent To Bag An Emmy Is ACE!

byRachna Srivastava
18th September 2017
3 minute read
Riz-Ahmed-Emmy-2017

You know him as the geek who stole a bit of the limelight from Matt Damon in Jason Bourne. And, of course, you know him as the Pakistani British guy, Nasir “Naz” Khan, from the limited series The Night Of. At the 69th Primetime Emmy Awards, Rizwan (Riz) Ahmed bagged the Limited Series Actor Award. #Woohoo

British Pakistani actor and rapper, Riz created history as he became the first ever actor with South-Asian descent to bag the lead actor award and the second South-Asian descendent to bag an Emmy.

He beat Benedict Cumberbatch (Sherlock: The Lying Detective), Robert De Niro (The Wizard of Lies), Ewan McGregor (Fargo), Geoffrey Rush (Genius) and co-star John Turturro (The Night Of) to get the award. Woah! 😀

 

Not only that, his wonderful acceptance speech at the stage has people lauding for him. He thanked a whole bunch of people and also said,

“I want to say it is always strange reaping the rewards of a story based on real world suffering. But if this show has shown a light on some of the prejudice in our societies, xenophobia, some of the injustice in our justice system, then maybe that is something.”

 

The Rogue One star gave a powerful speech at the press podium about inclusion and representation.

“I don’t know if any one person’s win of an award, or one person snagging one role, or one person doing very well changes something that’s a systemic issue … I think that’s something that happens slowly over time.”

 

Riz shared a picture on Instagram with Lena Waithe and Donald Glover, who have created histories themselves.

View this post on Instagram

We here

A post shared by Riz Ahmed (@rizahmed) on

 

Lena Waithe and Aziz Ansari bagged the award for the Outstanding Writing for a Comedy Series for Master of None. She’s the first African-American woman to bag the award.

 

Her “acceptance” speech received the loudest cheer and she thanked all for showing so much love to a Queer African-American woman and a South-Asian boy.

https://twitter.com/jnsanchez/status/909592794179805184

“I see each and every one of you. The things that make us different, those are our superpowers. Every day when you walk out the door and put on your imaginary cape and go out there and conquer the world, because the world would not be as beautiful as it is if we weren’t in it. And for everybody that showed us so much love of this episode. Thank you for embracing a little Indian boy from South Carolina and a little queer black girl from the South Side of Chicago.“

 

Congratulations started pouring in for the winners on social media and people are collectively proud for the winners. 

1. Here’s what PC had to say.

 

2. Shekhar Kapur too lauded for Riz.

 

3. People were happy with the Emmys this year.

 

4. Yes, she is 🙂

 

5. This happened too.

 

6. Pakistani’s were rejoicing.

https://twitter.com/wonpilanti/status/909691506461724672

So Academy is emerging from their #SoWhite hoopla and opening up its arms to people from all backgrounds.

Cover Image Source 1,2

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