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chante adams a league of their own

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As a Black woman navigating Hollywood, Chante Adams has faced her fair share of racism. During a candid chat, the League Of Their Own actress opened up about the challenges she’s experienced while pursuing her acting career and the discrepancies female athletes face compared to their male counterparts.

“We are always fighting a war on so many fronts. We’re not just women, we’re Black women,” she passionately explained. “There’s no way I can’t separate the two. I feel like as Black people and as Black women, when you attack my Blackness, you’re also attacking my Black womanhood.”

Adams, whose breakout role in the Denzel Washington directed A Journal For Jordan, landed her on Hollywood’s radar, was cast in the reimagining of the cult classic A League Of Their Own. The remake received heavy criticism from fans who didn’t think the 90s favorite needed a sequel. According to Adams, “remake” is the wrong word.

“Well, first, I will tell them that this is not a remake, we are not remaking the movie, the movie is perfect and iconic, exactly the way that it is. And it should stay that way. What we’re doing is taking that world, that spirit, and that same joy, when telling the same story of women in baseball, but we are expanding that universe. We understand and love the classic, just as much as everybody else.”

The original A League of Their Own focuses primarily on the struggles of White Women during WWII. Though this role is different from Chante’s more notable performances in Roxanne Roxanne and Bad Hair, she stays true to her support of woman empowerment on and off the screen.

Because the sports industry is male-dominated, there’s an enormous pay disparity between male and female athletes. “I feel like it’s not something that we can do alone,” she said. “It’s also up to the men to recognize that we are equal to them.”

“That we can be equal to them and they shouldn’t be scared that just because you are letting another group of people in your world. Doesn’t mean that anything is going to be taken away from them necessarily. When it comes to making sure there is equality between women and men.”

Adams was taught by her father that Black women have to work harder to get ‘half of what they have.” “But my dad is also a Black man so there’s an element of being a woman that he does not understand. And sometimes I feel like I’m working three, four times as hard to get half, to get half the recognition, to get half the pay. As Black women, we are constantly fighting over who we are, and to get that equal treatment. But that’s why I’m so excited for Black women to see characters on the screen like Max and hopefully they see themselves. It’s just another representation of not giving up and why continuing to pursue your dreams is so important.”

A League of Their Own is from Amazon Studios and Sony Pictures Television which Chanté Adams plays the character Max. You can now catch the full series on Prime Video.

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Chante Adams: Black Women Have To Work Twice As Hard  was originally published on hellobeautiful.com