What do you do when actually care about someone and you believe in his or her ability? Do you coddle him or her like others or do you address the things that you know need to be addressed in order to make him or her even better? Think about that question for a few moments and answer it honestly before reading further…
Thank you for your honesty. Now let’s continue.
Ok. Ryan Coogler, please stop using racial slurs in your movies. We believe in you and we believe in your ability. Please do not continue to tarnish your legacy as a director and as a person by continuing to present your hero and/or protagonist as one who uses a racial slur to communicate. By doing so you are setting the stage where people who see your movies are even more influenced to speak this way as well. Ultimately, this hurts everybody.
It’s already bad enough that racial epithets are littered throughout the most popular songs which are also in the most popular global musical genre. Ryan, help with your art, don’t hurt with your art. We believe in you, Ryan and because of that belief in you, we refuse to excuse this level of irresponsibility.
Many talented artists operate under the guise of being a reflection of the “real world”, or that they are “keeping it real” or that they are simply “mirrors of society”. Well Ryan, consider this outlook: mirrors are not merely for reflection but for correction. When you look in the mirror and you see something stuck in your teeth, you don’t leave it there. You remove it. You make the correction. When you look in the mirror and you see a booger in your nose, you don’t leave it there, right? You remove it. You make the correction. As artists, as people, as a society, the objective should always be to improve and to make corrections.
With that said, we are asking you to use your amazing talent to help. Help us to make corrections that serve to redress ills in society. We understand that this could sound like a huge undertaking. However, it could start with something very seemingly small. If you are doing an amazing project, please do not have the characters in your project addressing each other with racial slurs. This will make a huge difference everywhere. All of those who support you will at least consider seeing themselves and one another in a better way.
All of a sudden, your works of art will be just that-works of art. Your stories will be able to stand on the merit of substance and not pander to the base elements of communication within a community. You know, Ryan, there is a part in the 2000 movie, “Bamboozled”, written and directed by Spike Lee, where a doctoral degree holder in African American Studies from Yale comes in to advise the network and creators of the New Millennium Minstrel Show. In an attempt to make the minstrel show more palatable to civil rights groups, the consultant suggests that they emphasize the ethnicity of the person(s) behind the camera. The rationale presented was to offset any idea that this minstrel show was indeed a minstrel show.
What’s very interesting about this part of the film in particular, is that everyone in the meeting, including the consultant, knows that what they are attempting to do is to supplant substance for optics and to create a smokescreen. Their goal at this point in the movie is to get the world at large to lose sight of the fact that they are watching a minstrel show and to get the critics to pay more attention to the face behind the camera; this all is intended to move the audience towards comfort and justification in their patronage of a show wrought with racial epithets.
Ryan, in “Bamboozled”, the network and the show’s creator are misguided. They lose sight of history, substance and merit. Please remember this. All of the substance that you work so hard for in your projects dissipates when you include racial epithets. All of the solid actors in your cast immediately lose credibility when they are part of a production that incorporates such language. Your work all of a sudden becomes minstrelization. Please correct this as you move forward, Ryan. We would not pose this challenge to you, if we didn’t think you were capable. Please remember that we believe in you and please remember that the world is watching. That includes impressionable adults, teenagers and children.
That’s what ithinkie.
Published: May 6, 2025
