There’s a certain pleasure HBCU alums get when they see another HBCU grad in a TV show or film. That win for her, him, or them feels like a win for all of us, and seeing actress Javicia Leslie kick butt (and do her own stunts!) as a superhero is a gain for the culture. In the season 3 finale of R29 Unbothered’s Go Off, Sis podcast, Leslie, a proud Hampton University alumna and the first Black actor to play Batwoman in The CW's superhero TV series Batwoman, join the hosts to talk about the magnitude of being the lead on the call sheet and how she copes with "miserable" people spewing their negative thoughts about her role (i.e. "There's no such thing as a Black Batwoman").
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For one, she's learned to disable comments on social media and not engage with the haters, choosing instead to rise above it, because she understands the power and purpose behind her role. She goes on to describe a moment when a dad explained how his daughter saw the Batwoman casting, pointed at Leslie's photo, and said, "Dad, that woman looks like me."
“Everything I do matters," she says. "And it matters because there’s some little girl that’s waiting for the next episode, and she needs me to perform.”
To hear more about the power of the HBCU network and how Leslie deals with negativity on social media, listen to the full episode, below.
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