Jaleel White talks growing up as a Black child actor in Hollywood: 'I was never invited to the Emmys'
It's fair to say that Jaleel White is a literal child of Hollywood. Born in Culver City, Calif. in 1976, White got into the acting trade at the age of three, and grew up on camera, appearing in commercials, TV shows and feature films in a career that's spanned four decades and counting. At the height of his fame in the 1990s, he was one of biggest stars on network television, thanks to his breakout performance as Steve Urkel on the hit ABC sitcom, Family Matters.
Despite his importance to that show, the network and the industry at large, White says that he was always aware that Hollywood treated him differently than other successful — and white — child actors like Wonder Years star Fred Savage or Blossom's Mayim Bialik. "You were made to feel African-American," White tells Yahoo Entertainment now. "Fred Savage was always invited to the Emmys; he was always treated like a darling during this time. I was never invited to the Emmys, even to present. I was pretty much told that I would be wasting my time to even submit myself for nomination." White had the chance to discuss that double standard with Bialik on an episode of his popular podcast, Ever After. Originally conceived as a TV series, the podcast features the actor interviewing other now-grown child stars about their own experiences in the business. And those conversations often get very real, very quickly. "Go listen to that episode with Mayim, because she brought the pain when it came to the honesty about the differences of being a white child actor and a Black child actor, particularly back then," White says of how the industry's institutionalized prejudices carried over into the awards race. "It was so normalized — you just shrugged and said, 'Oh yeah, that's for the white kids.' When a Black person would win anything — never at the Emmys but at least on the Oscars side — if Denzel [Washington] would win or Whoopi [Goldberg] would win, those were 'Pick up the phone and call the whole family' moments."
https://www.yahoo.com/entertainment/jaleel-white-black-child-actor-hollywood-interview-family-matters-212715752.html
