With Spike Lee and Nate Parker’s newest joint
AMERICAN SKIN dropping this Martin Luther King weekend, we are reminded that
MLK’s “I Have A Dream” speech still hangs in the balance.
As far as we have come as a people, it only
takes one instance of a noose hanging in front of the Capitol Building to
remind us that the notion of White power and White supremacy is still thriving.
It’s mind-blowing that scenes photographed from the mid-1900s of protests/marches,
Black people being brutally beaten & killed, discrimination, segregation,
efforts to keep Black people from voting, access to capital and all of the
things that happened during the “WHITE’S ONLY” era are still headline news in
January of 2021.
Although fictional, AMERICAN SKIN represents a
scenario all too familiar in the Black and Brown community. Regardless of the
size of your bank account, how many points you score in an NBA game, how many
people you employ as a corporate CEO or leader of this nation, the one thing
police see is brown skin. And one slight move during a traffic stop can be seen
as ‘a threat’ and can end your existence on earth.
Omari Hardwick who stars in the film as Derwood,
best friend/brother of star/director/writer Nate Parker, is extremely
recognizable from his time playing James St. Patrick on the hit TV show POWER
yet is no stranger to systemic racism and racial profiling himself.
Hardwick has had numerous encounters with law
enforcement, with his most recent incident happening as he was filming Season 4
of the STARZ hit show. Hardwick was approached by two officers; one White and
one Black “The cop had issues,” he says about the White cop. “The Black cop
never spoke up. I of course said to the Black cop…you know exactly who I am and
he could barely look up at me. It’s so not about who I am, but you could
absolutely tell this gentleman that not only am I someone who he probably could
come and have a conversation with, but he might actually benefit from me having
a conversation with him because I’m only speaking for those that don’t have a
stature called Omari Hardwick.”
With the new administration taking office in
less than a week, and our first Black female Vice President, there is a glimpse
of hope on the horizon. At the very least, the type of rhetoric and behavior
that has been encouraged by Trump over the last four years will be denounced
and punished accordingly.
Sweeping reforms in law enforcement are a MUST
and officers who break the law must be held accountable. We cannot move forward
as a nation until this fractured system is fixed. Hopefully with films like
AMERICAN SKIN, showing that an unfiltered open dialogue can move the needle,
understanding, empathy, and love can help move this nation to a more peaceful
and tolerant place. This film is definitely worth a watch and a conversation.