So this past weekend I was back in front of the camera. My character was the ghost of a black kid from the 50s who was killed by a lynch mob for doing something he wasn’t supposed to be doing. In this case, ‘doing something he wasn’t supposed to be doing’ meant talking to a white woman. I wasn’t playing Emmitt Till (the young man pictured above), but the influence was obvious. Trayvon Martin was never mentioned by name in the story, but again, the influence of his life was obvious.
As an actor, I wasn’t overly happy with my performance, but that comes out of my desire to constantly challenge myself and get better at the craft. I also know from experience, ‘Lady In My Life’ specifically, that when it comes to television and film performances, a good editor will use your best takes from the shoot and create the best possible performance. So we’ll see how the finished product turns out.
What this post is really about though is the larger issue. Evidently someone got creative with a road sign in Michigan, there was a shooting spree in Tulsa last week that may or may not have been racially motivated, people are still marching here in Los Angeles and in other major cities. It’s an…interesting time to say the least. Across the board, we’ve often joked that we’re living in the ‘Too Much Information’ Era; it seems like we may finally being seeing the ugly side of that sentiment. I highly doubt, percentage wise, there are more ‘extremists’ now than there have been before. But as we now live in a time where all of us (present company included), can broadcast their thoughts to the entire world, we’re constantly learning who knows how to filter their ugliest thoughts, and who takes advantage of the relative safety of standing behind a keyboard to say what they really think.
Who knows where this is going? All I know is I don’t like it, and I’m not the only one. Dealing with people who operate in extremes is like dealing with children in my opinion: there are times when the best course of action is to ignore them so they won’t feel their behavior will be rewarded, and there are other times when you have to confront them head on to let them know their behavior is unacceptable.
What’s needed now is the latter.
