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This movie comes from a book of the same title, and while
there are a number of aspects of the presentation of the film that might increase
defensiveness about racial bias in viewers, it is well worth watching. The central event is a police killing of an
unarmed black youth in a routine traffic stop.
Starr is the heroine, who witnessed the shooting and was the only
witness for the grand jury investigation.
She is black and from a poor neighborhood where the drug dealers are the
center of power and control. She is from
an intact family, but her father was in prison in the past, and had an affair
that produced a child. Her mother is
committed to getting her and her brother out of poverty, and towards that,
Starr goes to a private school on a scholarship. So by day she is trying to fit in at school
and at home she is trying to stay out of trouble. The witnessing of a cop killing was part of
the later, and it serves to focus her anger about being constantly judged based
on the color of her skin. Her uncle, who
is black and a cop, tells her he also does the same racial profiling as the
white cop who killed her friend. She
gets involved in activism around the violence in her community, but at the same
time she feels more alienated from her peers at school. It has all the elements of what the barriers
are to change, and is very well done.
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