When Scandal premiered in 2012, viewers were excited about witnessing the first Black female lead on a primetime drama in 37 years. Kerry Washington strutted onto our screens as Olivia Pope, dressed to the nines and saying things to powerful white men that most of us would never have the position, let alone the gall to say. She was a pinnacle of Black excellence and lived a life that so few Americans — white or Black — would ever get to experience, but work towards anyway. Her mother is an international spy and terrorist. Her father is also a spy and former leader of a violent, covert government agency. Both of them, however, are unapologetically Black, delivering familiar Black colloquialisms like, “You have to be twice as good to get half of what they get,” and “ Black women out here trying to save everybody. ” Despite the fact the storylines on Scandal were far removed from the lives of Black people in this country, the Pope family was recognizably Black. That Olivia Pope was involved in a salacious affair with the very married, and very white President of the United States made her divisive and slightly controversial, bringing up memories of racial tropes like the jezebel and mulatto.