Guys, I am one of the "internet trolls" whose has been talking about Cynthia Erivo playing Harriet. I will try to explain to you what the issue is. Il hope you will listen with an open mind to what I have to say. I am a Descendant of American Chattel Slavery living in this country for over 250 years. A DACS. You know the history of slavery correct? Brought over to America, to work for free, beaten, murdered, mutilated, raped, lynched, etc. Kept from going to college until the 60's. Imprisoned for no reason generation after generation. Kept from buying homes. Kept out of movies and broadway until fairly recently. And that's the issue. DACS actors were kept out of movies until about 10 years ago. I'm talking major roles. And still there are only about 1-2 per year available. These are good roles, oscar type roles that every DACS actor wants. Imagine thousands of black women actors fighting for 2 roles per year? White women get, hundreds or thousands to choose from. Now imagine that in the UK, Black Brits are not hired for any roles because of racism. What do they do? They come to the US. So now add Black Brits and Africans to the numbers of black Americans vying for 1-2 roles per year. Sometimes one of those roles is about the history of DACS, black Americans. Imagine growing up your whole life and NEVER seeing a story about a positive part of your history. That happens to ALL African Americans. We can go a lifetime and never see a movie about our history. Other people have always told our history. Getting it wrong and sometimes being very racist. That has real world consequences. (police officer breaks into a black mans home and kills him because she was afraid)White people can go about, 15 minutes, turn the channel, there's whole channels about your history. This is why it was such a slap in the face, when one of the very very few good roles for black American women, actually about THEM becomes available, it is given to a woman who is not only NOT American,but is from an African tribe that sold people to America. And this isn't the only time, as you mentioned this has happened before. Now again, if you get to have thousands of movies made each year about you, this isn't a problem if some Brits take a few roles. But if you get one movie A LIFETIME, that you dreamed about since you were a child, and it is deemed that a foreigner who knows absolutely nothing about that subject is the best to tell it, well you'd be upset too And remember, you were kept from telling your story in the past, now it's happening again.. And also, Cynthia has been caught on the internet retweeting posts that say nasty things about African Americans. There are screenshots. So yeah, upset. Any question?
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