If you’ve ever watched Black-ish, Marcus Scribner’s character Junior has a soft-spot in your heart. In an interview with The Huffington Post, Scribner admitted to the one thing that we all secretly hoped to be true — he’s a blerd IRL.

Photo: ABC/Hulu
Photo: ABC/Hulu


“We definitely have our similarities,” Scribner said of his character. “We love video games, we love superheroes, some of those kind of things that are classic ‘nerd’ kind of things.”

He went on to talk about how Black-ish is changing the way that black people are represented on the small screen. He’s clumsy, he doesn’t get some of his father’s “traditionally black” customs (like always going to the same barber) and he’s a nerd. Junior is the antithesis of the young black male in white America’s eyes.

Scribner is well aware of Junior’s impact and of the shows that have paved the way for characters like his. He referenced that shows like Everybody Hates Chris and The Bernie Mac Show introduced the black nerd to television, and noted that this trend won’t end with Black-ish.

“I definitely want to [have] a super positive impact… making sure that nerds, black nerds in specific, are being represented on television. Cause I mean, to be honest, there’s just a ton of us out here,” Scribner said, holding it down for all of the blerds.

And, he’s already living up to his promise. Scribner’s latest role is as a coder in the movie Alexander IRL.

We can’t wait to see what else he’s going to do!


Want more articles by Kady Phillips? Sign up for Blavity’s daily newsletter.