GLAAD Media Awards: See honoree Kerry Washington’s passionate and powerful speech

I’m going to have lots more form last night’s GLAAD Media Awards but wanted to first share with you the powerful speech from Scandal star Kerry Washington when she took the stage to accept the Vanguard Award at the Beverly Hilton Hotel.

‘I think some stuff needs to be said,’ Washington told the audience that included Ellen DeGeneres, Portia de Rossi, Channing Tatum, Patricia Arquette, Viola Davis, Andrew Rannells and Zoe Saldana, among others.

She then went on to say some stuff: ‘Women, poor people, people of color, people with disabilities, gay men, lesbians, bisexuals, trans people, intersex people — we have been pitted against each other and made to feel there are limited seats at the table for those of us who fall into the category of ‘other.’ As a result, we have become afraid of one another.

‘We compete with one another, we judge one another. Sometimes, we betray one another. Sometimes even within our own communities we designate who among us is best suited to represent us and who really shouldn’t even be invited to the party.’

Washington brought up DeGeneres’ very public coming out in 1997 and mentioned that it came just 30 years before the US Supreme Court ruled that the ban against interracial marriage was unconstitutional.

‘Up until then, heterosexual people of different races couldn’t marry who they wanted to marry either,’ she said.

‘When black people today tell me that they don’t believe in gay marriage… the first thing that I say is "please don’t let anybody try to get you to vote against your own best interest by feeding you messages of hate." Then I say "you know people used to say stuff like that about you and your love."’