00:00This is my karma for hurting you.
00:08It's hurt long before you.
00:14As a showrunner and a writer, it's very important to me that black women are represented.
00:19I, of course, am a black woman.
00:21And, you know, growing up, I didn't know any showrunners or writers.
00:25I didn't even know this was a job that could be offered to me or something that I could do.
00:29A single film class at Columbia University ignited Ramallah Muhammad's passion for storytelling.
00:35Trusting her intuition, she stepped away from her economics major to immerse herself in film and English.
00:42She brought her stories to life on New York's Off-Broadway stages until the call of Hollywood beckoned her home.
00:48She honed her craft at USC's prestigious School of Cinematic Arts,
00:52earning a master's degree in film and television production,
00:55the opening scene of what would become her defining legacy.
00:58My journey as a black woman in Hollywood began, actually, my first job that I ever had in Hollywood was as a PA.
01:06And then I ended up working at Fox Searchlight as an intern when I was in grad school at USC.
01:11And then kind of the big break I had was as a writer's PA season six on Grey's Anatomy.
01:16I would say I was very fortunate early on in my career to work for Shonda Rhimes and work on Scandal.
01:23And that show was so important to a lot of black women.
01:26A lot of black women.
01:27And then I stayed at Shondaland for nine years.
01:29And I just had a, you know, just a wonderful journey.
01:32Carrie Washington became the first black woman to lead a network drama in nearly four decades.
01:38Seeing how that impacted other black women, how people showed up for Carrie, how people showed up for Shonda,
01:44that people did want to see black women on TV that made me really be inspired to want to put more black women on television.
01:52Ramla's artistic vision found its perfect canvas in Hulu's Little Fires Everywhere.
01:57Her nuanced writing and profound grasp of human complexity elevated the series, drawing five distinguished nominations between 2020 and 2021,
02:07including a primetime Emmy nod for Outstanding Limited Series.
02:11Ramla's visionary talent reached new heights with Reasonable Doubt.
02:16The first original series from Onyx Collective.
02:19As creator and showrunner, she set the tone for the production company's bold mission of unapologetically black storytelling.
02:26Her dynamic series helped cement Onyx Collective as a vital new voice in television, marking Ramla as a defining force in the industry.
02:34I really do enjoy when people come to me and say they watch the show, they love the show.
02:38I've seen people say they've gotten into couples therapy because of the show.
02:42And so for me, it's important that in these roles that we represent our community and represent voices because they're little girls and little boys out there watching and hoping that maybe they can do what we do.
02:54I really do.
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