Evan Carmichael wants to launch two new monthly series spotlighting Black and Latin entrepreneurs, inspired by how Nichelle Nichols' role on Star Trek inspired Whoopi Goldberg. He's asking viewers to suggest short, trending names for the series, considering "Black Excellence" and "Viva" but open to better options.
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This is a quick video to my friends in the Black and Latin communities. I need your guidance, I need your support, I need your advice on something really important. But before getting there, I want to tell you a quick story. If you guys know a show named Star Trek, it first came out, I think, in the '60s. One of the things that was really interesting about it was they had a Black woman as the third in command. It was Lieutenant Uhura. And at that time, it was strange not just for a woman to be in a position of power— talking about the 1960s— but to have a black person in a position of power was really radical, really different. Now, the person who played Lieutenant Uhura actually wanted to quit the show. After the first season, she had an opportunity to go and be in a Broadway play, and that was her first love. And she told the producer Gene Roddenberry that she was gonna quit the show. A little while later, Martin Luther King showed up on her doorstep, said he was a big fan of the show and that she couldn't quit. He told her, "You cannot quit because it's too important. It's too important to the community, to the Black community." It was the only show that he allowed his kids to stay up late to go and watch. And for the first time, Black people had somebody to look up to and say, "Hey, look, this person is making it. This person's having an impact.
If she can do it, we can too." I looked up and I went, "Oh my God, there's Dr. King. There's Dr. Martin Luther King." And I met him and we became great friends and I became friends with his family and it was a great time. In my life for me. I was offered a role on Broadway, and hell and high water was not gonna stop me. Only Dr. King did. I was going to quit the show. He said, "You can't. You can do it at another time, but at this time, 'You have an obligation.' I said, 'Of what?' He said, 'To probably a million and a half Black people and twice as many white people and a few yellow, brown, orange, and green people. You're first on television. You changed the face of television forever.' He said, 'But right now, if you leave, it's as though you were never there, 'cause you haven't been there long enough.' They can put somebody back up a blue-eyed blonde white girl in there and it won't matter. And I was mad. I was angry because I wanted to go and do something, you know. And I started thinking about it and I said, "It's not about me. It's not about me.
It's about us." And so Lieutenant Uhura stayed on the show all the way until the season was done and then the series was done. She stayed every single season. Fast forward, there was an actress by the name of Whoopi Goldberg, who you may be familiar with, and when she was a young woman growing up, she remembered watching on TV Lieutenant Uhura, and she called out to her mom, "Mommy, mommy, mommy, look at the TV!" Gather around, look, there's a Black woman on TV and she's not a maid. And that helped inspire her to want to become an actress. And she went on to be a great actress and be in tons of movies. And just showing her a different path. Now what's the importance of this story? I bring this up because, you know, I believe you can learn from anybody. I love learning from men, from women, from white, from Black, from all sorts of different countries and backgrounds and sexual preferences. And it doesn't matter to me. If I can learn from you, I wanna digest that message. But I also fully understand that, especially at the beginning, people will gravitate to learning from people who look like them. Who are from a similar country, who have similar backgrounds, who look like them. And so, what I really wanted to do is, you know, recognizing the importance of my channel and seeing how for kids, A lot of school teachers are using my videos and sharing it to their school as part of their curriculum. A lot of parents are sitting down and watching my videos with their kids. And in looking at some of the people we profiled, it hasn't been as diverse as I would like it to be. I think there's an opportunity to make better outreach so that when kids are watching the show, watching the channel, there's somebody who looks like them so that they realize, "Hey, I can be an entrepreneur too." I can have success too. I don't need to be limited by the roles that are currently out there. And so my first attempt with this was the Girl Boss series, and that came out recently, and that had some good success, and I hope that series continues. And just showcasing different women entrepreneurs, women in different positions of power, so that the young girls growing up can watch that and say, "Hey, I could be a CEO. I could be an entrepreneur too." And now I want to make an outreach to my friends in the Black community and the Latin community. I want to showcase the successful Black and Latin entrepreneurs as two different series, uh, similar to what we did with Girlboss. And what I need your help with is coming up with the name. I want to pick something that signifies strength and growth and entrepreneurship and empowerment to that community. But me not being a part of the community, I don't want to pick the wrong name. And so Girlboss is a trending hashtag. Represents, you know, women empowerment, and I want to do the same thing for the Black and Latin communities, and I want your help. What do we name the series? And so I want to give a quick shout out to Devon Trish and Marisha Rodriguez, who helped me come up with the initial kind of road test names. We're looking at Black Excellence for the Black series and Viva for the Latin series. I just want to know your thoughts. Is there a better name out there? I'm not looking to create my own trend. I don't want to create my own hashtag. I want to jump on one that is currently popular within that community and lend my support to it, just like Girlboss. So I'd love to know your thoughts. I see these as a potential monthly series. So Girlboss is a monthly series, you know, Black Excellence or whatever we call it is a monthly series, and then Viva or whatever we call it for the Latin series once a month. And so I really would appreciate suggestions on what to call it. Criteria: 1, it's short. Black Excellence. Black Excellence is 4 syllables. Ideally something shorter, but again, something that is trending, is already a symbol of empowerment. Viva is okay, it's nice and short, but it just means celebration. It doesn't really have the empowerment aspect of it, so they're both good roadmap names, but I'm hoping we can find something better and wanted to engage you guys in the conversation. If you have a suggestion for me for what to call it, leave it down in the comments below. I'm really looking forward to hearing what you have to say. Thank you guys so much for the support. Uh, I really appreciate it. It means a lot to me, and, um, I hope these new series take off. Thank you guys so much. Enjoy the rest of your Friday. Continue to believe in whatever you're One word is: I'll see you soon.
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