This is an I-Heart podcast.

This is Solvable. I'm Ronald Young Jr.

We should be allowed to take up space. Not just allowed to take up space. We should be just

taking up space ourselves because we deserve it.

In recent years, calls for more diverse representation in Hollywood and show business

have grown louder and more frequent. Whether it's April Rain starting to hashtag Oscar

So White or writer-director-actor, actor, actor Issa Ray using her large following to be rooting for everybody Black, there have been many public calls for action around and criticism of the lack of visibility for non-white folks in Hollywood.

Without visibility, there's no change. Without visibility, there's no access.

So it's really about getting in front of as many eyes and ears as possible to get your story out there.

And in order to tell a story, you need to be in the room where stories are written, specifically

writers' rooms.

According to a 2017 report on representation in Hollywood

and in television, of nearly 4,000 writers, 4.8% of them were black, and over half of all shows

have zero black writers. Mike Goyo is one of the very few who have made it to the inside.

We're in this space now.

We have to build out these programs for ourselves,

because if we don't build them out, everything will remain the same.

So we have to kind of like take the initiative to do that.

Goyo's most recent job was writing for a little show on HBO.

You might have heard me shout out on a previous solvable episode.

That show is called Insecure.

And today, Goyo is also the founder of a mentorship organization called Black Boy Rights and Black Girl Rights.

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