EXCLUSIVE: Is systemic racism nonetheless a factor?
The brief reply is sure. And for the lengthy reply, properly, that’s one thing that Jason George and Todd Grinnell are unpacking in a video from Hollywood, Well being & Society and USC Annenberg’s Norman Lear Heart, which Deadline is debuting completely.
“[Racism is] nonetheless baked into our society, definitely on a private stage, however on a systemic stage, these legal guidelines that have been created after slavery was abolished to maintain former slaves from having the ability to advance in society, have been baked in to our methods, and nonetheless are there,” Kate Folb, director of Hollywood, Well being & Society, advised Deadline.
She revealed it took almost a 12 months to get the script proper for the 9-minute video by which the 2 actors take viewers from the Civil Conflict to modern-day, illustrating how racism and the need to guard slavery influenced the legal guidelines and methods that also management america right now.
The purpose of the video, George says, is to get throughout the message that “it’s nothing that you simply, individually, must be ashamed of since you didn’t do it, except you might be actively holding slaves or actively stopping individuals from getting housing due to the colour their pores and skin, and many others, and many others. But it surely’s simply one thing that must be acknowledged as truth, and we have to not run from it.”
The nation has gone via considerably of a racial reckoning in the previous couple of years, after the homicide of George Floyd prompted huge, widespread protests through the COVID-19 lockdowns. Not solely that, however the nation has, on some stage, been pressured to confront its racist foundations many occasions during the last a number of many years.
The idea of structural racism may be traced again greater than 100 years and, within the age of social media, one would possibly marvel how anybody wouldn’t find out about it by now. However, George and Grinnell say that any frustration they really feel about those that stay uneducated on the matter is trumped by their need to see a change.
“You may be upset that folks don’t know what you anticipate them to know, or you may try to remedy the issue. On the finish of the day, I feel the issue with the place our nation is true now could be too many individuals are attempting to win some philosophical political cage match, as an alternative of really rolling up sleeves, getting collectively, having a dialog and attempting to unravel the issue,” George stated. “It’s an actual factor for individuals to really feel [burdened], as a result of they really feel like, ‘I’ve to tackle this further duty. I simply don’t have the power to even get into it with you.’ And I perceive that. However on the finish of the day, if I would like the issue solved, I’ll discover some power.”
Each actors agreed that they have been on board with the thought from the start, not solely as a result of they resonated with the thought, but in addition as a result of they’re already doing this sort of work in different tasks. George has helped each Station 19 and Gray’s Anatomy inform swaths of tales about social points, as has Grinnell, particularly with One Day at a Time.
Audiences spend hours with characters over the course of a season and, hopefully, when the time comes to coach them or problem their views, they’re open to the thought as a result of they see these characters as their buddies. As welcoming, constant faces on TV, George and Grinnell hope that their participation on this video would possibly do the identical.
“When Ben Warren received pulled over in Station 19 — we use artwork to narrate to individuals. Both we see ourselves in them, or we glance as much as them… After I watched that episode, I’m like, ‘That’s my man,’” Grinnell defined. “I’ve been following that dude for years on this present. He’s nice. He appears like a good friend. Then hastily, when your pals in jeopardy. It appears like an assault. It’s astonishing what these exhibits can do generally. We’re fortunate to be part of all of them.”
This definitely isn’t the primary time that the group has tackled delicate topics, having consulted on many episodes of tv on surrounding racism, girls’s reproductive well being, LGBTQ+ rights and extra, from Citadel to How you can Get Away with Homicide to Normal Hospital.
In June, Hollywood, Well being & Society and USC Annenberg’s Norman Lear Heart teamed up at ATX Pageant in Austin, Texas to current stage readings of episodes of Maude and Good Instances that tackled abortion and systemic racism, respectively. Each struck a chord with the stay viewers and felt fairly a bit extra well timed than one would possibly anticipate from a 50-year-old episode of tv.
“That’s, to me, is what makes these episodes, or all of [Lear’s] exhibits, actually so iconic,” Folb stated of their skill to carry up a mirror to the current day. “There have been so many strains that simply match proper in with right now.”
George and Grinnell will likely be persevering with the dialogue on structural racism at Hollywood, Well being and Society and the Norman Lear Heart‘s “Do The Write Factor” occasion Wednesday evening alongside Steve Harper and Erika Inexperienced Swafford.
It’s a part of a sequence of comparable occasions that deliver Hollywood creatives and outstanding figures collectively to highlight marginalized teams and foster dialog about how they’re depicted in movie and tv.
The actors suppose that, via each the video and the dialog, “perhaps [people] can unlearn some issues and reassess,” Grinnell stated. “I feel if we aren’t lively in these conversations, lively in dismantling racism, then we’re complicit.”
