As I reflect on the year behind and the year to come, the greatest lesson I've learned and I want to impart is the need to control our own narrative across all facets of our digitally connected lives both in our fiction and IRL (in real life).

There is one artistic voice that stands out above the rest as pivotal to the national conversation around race, identity and social justice. That is the voice of John Jennings, visual artist pioneer and author.

Shows like Scandal, Black-ish and Fresh Off the Boat lead the way to a more diverse TV landscape. Outside of the U.S., however, there's still much more work to be done.

Even though our reality is full of individuals who are deaf/HoH, only a handful of this population has been given an opportunity to join the cast of a reality TV show. They don't fit into the "reality" that producers are trying to create, and that is a shame for all of us.

While mainstream media still struggles to integrate diversity into programming, the internet offers a vastly different experience. People around the globe, of all backgrounds and abilities, are uploading original new content every day, smashing boring stereotypes and changing the way we view different cultures.

We do not need other people to take their cameras and claim to know what the world looks like through our eyes. We do not need others to speak over us, pretending to tell our stories, when we have our own voices and our own cameras and are fully capable of documenting our lives.