Tessa Thompson, Michael B. Jordan, Zoë Kravitz, and Sam Richardson, among hundreds of other Black artists and studio executives, have signed a letter asking Hollywood to divest from police and anti-Black content. The letter, written by Miss Juneteenth and Insecure star Kendrick Sampson and developed by Thompson and Black Lives Matter co-founders Patrisse Cullors and Melina Abdullah, notes that “Hollywood and mainstream media have contributed to the criminalization of Black people, the misrepresentation of the legal system, and the glorification of police corruption and violence” and how that’s “had dire consequences on Black lives.”
It reads:
“Even with the recent successes of Black-led and produced films and television, myths of limited international sales and lack of universality of Black-led stories are used to reduce our content to smaller budgets and inadequate marketing campaigns. White people make up the smallest racial demographic globally, yet their stories are seen as internationally universal. When we do get the rare chance to tell our stories, our development, production, distribution, and marketing processes are often marred, filtered, and manipulated by the white gaze.”
On top of divesting from police and anti-Black content, the letter, which was also signed by numerous Black members of the Marvel Cinematic Universe, Billy Porter, Gugu Mbatha-Raw, Idris Elba, Issa Rae, Octavia Spencer, and Viola Davis, also demands that Hollywood invest in anti-racist content and in “our community” and “our careers.”
You can read the whole letter here, and see the full list of demands at BLDPWR.
