Anika Noni Rose’s Patience With Cicely Tyson Is the Blackest Thing That Ever Happened This Week

The Emmys began last night with a skit featuring disgraced former White House press secretary Sean Spicer, a clear reference to Melissa McCarthy’s brilliant impersonation of him on Saturday Night Live and an act where the consequencelessness of whiteness has never been better exemplified. Whatever hope there is that the people connected with Donald Trump’s administration will be pariahed in perpetuity continues to dissipate when people like Spicer are paraded around and allowed to rehab their image. His appearance last night a stark reminder that the people who created this bit believed it was a good idea, and that the people who guffawed at Spicer’s willingness to self-deprecate (and kikied and selfied with him during the post-Emmy parties) might identify as progressive but possess a cushion of privilege allowing them to treat Trump’s terrorism as an extended thought exercise gone awry. They might be with us in theory, but their investment and allydom has limitations. Can’t let terrorism get in the way of a good kiss.

Ultimately, all we got is us. Which is why Issa Rae’s comment about rooting for everybody black was so beautiful. As was Lena Waithe’s speech on the superpowers of the LGBTQIA community. And Donald Glover’s shot at the white progressives in the room where he “joked” that Trump’s election and the subsequent white guilt are the only reason his work on Atlanta was recognized by them. And Sterling K. Brown not allowing the timer music to end his speech, especially not when Nicole Kidman was allowed to read the entire first chapter of Gone Girl just moments earlier. And Riz Ahmed articulating the ambivalence of winning an Emmy while playing a marginalized character.

And no moment better exemplified the beauty of that edict than when Anika Noni Rose and Cicely Tyson presented the Award for Outstanding Limited Series. Overcome with nerves, the 92-year-old Tyson—one of the few people who can legitimately be considered a living legend—struggled when reading her speech. But the sublime Rose put her arm around …

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