On October 24, Oscar-winning director Quentin Tarantino flew to New York City from California to peacefully take part in the RiseUpOctober march. Together with families and supporters, he stood and marched against police brutality and for the loss of innocent lives. Now, the New York City Police Department, among other police unions, wants to boycott his films.
Tarantino, being not only an older white male, but an oscar-winning, popular director with (I assume) a lot of money, is in a place of extreme privilege. At least he is using his platform and privilege to shed light on a serious, ongoing race issue that many would rather avoid because of controversy surrounding the subject.
Of course, we don't need to praise another white man, but at the same time, not many celebrities are getting involved in this movement against police brutality. Jamie Foxx encouraged Tarantino's actions of speaking out. Foxx said, “Keep telling the truth, keep speaking the truth and don’t worry about none of the haters,” at the Hollywood Film Awards, according to The Hollywood Reporter.
It's kind of laughable that The New York Police Department's response is to boycott his films. I don't think people are actually going to boycott his films, at least not to any point near tarnishing his career. A lot of the time, I sense that nothing gets resolved in these conversations. It seems to be about who's right and who's wrong versus looking at procedures and policies and asking how can we improve?
No, not all police officers are bad. That's evident, but it seems like that always has to be said in this conversation. There are many police officers who do their job correctly and don't use unnecessary force, but there are many others who are certainly violent when they most likely don't need to be. Granted, I'm not a police officer and I'm speaking from a position of privilege, but how can people just sit back and ignore the rapidly growing number of people who are killed or unnecessarily attacked by officers, and the majority of them seem to be people of color? It just doesn't make any sense to me.
According to a project called The Counted by The Guardian, there have been about 960 people killed by police officers this year alone. This may not be a definite total, as they are reporting, updating, and crowdsourcing to highlight these lost lives, but it's a step in the right direction. Much like the epidemic of sexual assault and school shootings, I wonder how many more have to happen until we are actually proactive and say that we won't let this happen again? How many more will it take?
