It was an historic night on September 20th at the 67th Emmy Awards. Actress Viola Davis became the first African-American woman to win the Emmy for Leading Actress in a Drama.

Davis was awarded for her role as defense attorney Annalise Keating in the ABC drama "How To Get Away With Murder." Her performance as the unapologetic Keating has warranted praise from critics, and her win is well-deserved. But what caught the attention of viewers is Davis’ acceptance speech, in which she spoke about the role of race in the media industry and thanked various executives and producers for their portrayal of actors and actresses of color.

“The only thing that separates women of color from anyone else is opportunity,” she said.

This one line alone speaks volumes about the way the media industry has treated and continues to treat people of color. Women and men of brown and black skin continue to be underrepresented in movies and television. According to a study by The Representation Project, six of the 500 top box-office films feature a woman of color as the primary protagonist. Furthermore, not one of these six films was in the top 200 of those films. What’s even more alarming is that less than 5 percent of wide-release films star women of color.

Hollywood is notorious for sidelining people of color, exemplified by the lack of non-whites in films as well as the even-worse trend of choosing white actors to play colored roles. Burt Lancaster, a white actor, played an Apache soldier in the film “Apache” in 1933, and Ben Affleck played Tony Mendez, a man of Mexican ancestry, in the critically acclaimed 2013 film “Argo.” The Every Single Word project by actor and playwright Dylan Marron counts the lines spoken by every character of color in big-budget films. In all eight "Harry Potter" films, colored characters spoke for a total of five minutes and 40 seconds in the series that spans 1,207 minutes.

While Davis’ acceptance speech garnered praise from those in the audience and throughout social media, it did not go without any criticism. Soap opera actress Nancy Grahn posted a series of tweets criticizing Davis’ speech, going so far as to say that Davis has never been discriminated against. Thinking that critical recognition and an Emmy Award is an effective barrier against racial discrimination and oppression is an invalidation of Davis’s experiences as a black actress in an industry that regularly sidelines women who look like her.

People may argue that shows like "How To Get Away With Murder," "Fresh Off the Boat" and "Black-Ish" are examples of improvements in the representation of people of color in the media. However, while these are signs of slight progress, they cannot be taken as signs of resolution.

Davis’ acceptance speech also highlights the difference between opportunity and merit. It’s simply ridiculous that it took 67 years for a black woman to be recognized as a leading actress in a drama. The reason behind this lies in the lack of opportunity, not in a “lack of talent” in colored actresses in the past 67 years. Women of color are just as talented and just as capable as white women of taking on difficult roles in television and film. The number of awards won or not won cannot be synonymous with talent. Merit is perpetuated through awards, while opportunity is achieved by providing more representation to marginalized groups in society, giving them the roles and recognition they rightfully deserve.