Cyrus Langhorne
ABC's "Black-ish" creator Kenya Barris has come forward to speak out on bringing the real-life issue of police brutality into this week's episode.
While the “Hope” episode spoke on the fictional Johnson family’s reaction to a nearby police brutality incident, Barris said there was a bigger inspiration behind the show.
“Police brutality is the issue we chose to talk about, but the bigger issue for me is talking to your kids about what’s going on in the world. It used to be you could shelter them in your own way, but with Internet and phones and 24-hour news, you can’t avoid those conversations. … I wanted to do something different. We wanted to let the audience eavesdrop on this family’s conversation. I felt like the best way to do that was to let the viewer be an eighth member of the family.” (New York Times)
This week’s episode placed attention on the aftermath of police brutality happening in the family’s neighborhood.
The episode, titled “Hope,” finds the Johnson family watching news coverage of a case involving an African-American teenager. They grapple with how to talk to the family’s youngest members — twins Jack and Diane — about the community reaction to the case and others like it. (Chicago Tribune)
This week, Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg issued a letter to employees over a Black Lives Matter incident.
In a private memo posted on a company announcement page for employees only, Mark Zuckerberg acknowledged that employees have been scratching out “black lives matter” (sic) and writing “all lives matter” on the company’s famous signature wall. The company, whose staff is only 2 percent black, is facing the issue head on. (Gizmondo)
Talking about Police Brutality won’t improve the situations, specific actions will. Mentioning it on a show definitely won’t make it better for police victims in the future, but worse actually. Make smarter moves and raise not the awareness, but the steps people can take to improve on the way police handles themselves and the scene they’re at, etc.
This comment makes no sense whatsoever… To inspire change, you must first create a dialogue. That dialogue turns into action. So talking about it definitely is the first step.