If you haven't seen "Straight Outta Compton," yet I really recommend it. Even if you're not a hip-hop fan, to see the cultural impact that N.W.A. had throughout mainstream America is really powerful.
There's something about the movie that has me asking many questions about our world today, and how far we have come. That "something" is the relationship of police officers and people of color vs. the relationship between police officers and white people.
"Straight Outta Compton" generated $60.2 million during its first weekend, and it's only making more money the longer it's out. I'm pretty positive that the people who came out and watched the movie are from all different backgrounds, cultures, religions, race, gender, and political affiliations. I'm also pretty positive that the people watching the movie saw the same thing that I did, maybe with different lenses and thinking, but we all saw the same movie.
Everyone in the movie saw the same chain of events that each member had with the police. Eazy-E is in a trap house when the cops decide to use a tank with a battering ram to barge into a home, with police officers decked out in M-16s and body armor.
Outside Ice Cube's house, flashing lights and cops welcome him as he walks out of his house minding his own business. The police decide to walk up to him, even though they were previously dealing with something else, slam him on the hood of the police car, and search him for no reason.
When the whole group is recording their album, they go outside to take a break, and cops pursue them. The Policemen explain that they look like "gang bangers" and harass them, searching them, even as Jerry, their manager, says that they are working in the studio.
I understand that this is a movie, I really do. Very few things in Hollywood are real, but the portrayal of the relationship between the cast and the community they lived in with the police holds merit.
Members of N.W.A. were part of the writing process. Why would they would lie about such violent and traumatic experiences? We hear stories all the time of actors, athletes, entrepreneurs, etc., who have gone through the same things. There are documentaries all over ESPN and other popular networks that cover people with similar stories and how they rose above their conditions to live the "American Dream."
All of us believe these people, those that are "high-profile" and we idolize them to various degrees. Why is it that when we see police misconduct towards people of color on the news, our country is divided? It is because it's in our face? I don't really understand why we believe the people that we glorify in the media while simultaneously saying that race isn't a factor and they got what they deserved.
I'm sorry, America, but race is a factor in just about everything in life. It's okay to admit that race makes it harder for certain people to get jobs, to get loans from a bank, or even to stay alive. It's not a swipe at white people to acknowledge these things; it's not going to make you have any less rights than you already have; it's not going to give people special treatment; it's building a whole community to the level that they should be at.
Statistically, people of color account for half of killings by police, even though they only make up less than 38 percent of the population. Outlets like the Guardian have reported what we already know; a black person is more than twice as likely to be killed while being unarmed, by the police if you're a person of color than if you're white. In this age of colorblind racism, where the attitude is racism is the a thing of the past we're all equal now stop playing the "race card," we don't see these statistics. We need to see these things for what the are to actually address and fix the problem instead of burying our heads in the sand.
In the words of our beloved Jon Stewart, "race is there and it's a constant. You're tired of hearing about it? Imagine how f*cking exhausting it is living it."
