Last night, we did a screening of "WALKING WHILE BLACK: L.O.V.E. Is The Answer" for 530 mostly black and brown UCLA incoming freshman, sponsored by the #UCLAAcademicAdvancementProgram. I was excited about it because it was our largest screening to date, but I wasn't fully prepared for what I would experience.
All of the young people I met were vibrant, intelligent, hopeful and positive. Some of them shared with me privately that they are also scared, confused and disappointed. They need men and women to stand up for them, embrace them, get to know them and fight for them. These kids are brilliant, but the disconnect between where their needs are and how my generation has let them down is real. Many of them do not feel loved by people in positions of power. I'm not just talking about people like Trump. I'm also talking about black and brown leaders of organizations that are supposed to be there for advancing and protecting the rights and opportunities of minorities.
My heart broke for these young people last night at the same time their very presence was encouraging to me. I saw, felt and heard the very same thing at the NAACP's national convention last week in Baltimore where young people were crying out for opportunities to lead but who are constantly told to wait your turn.
My sense is that this is a national crisis. Our nation has squandered an immeasurable amount of wealth of intellectual capital and leadership potential through racism, and we have doubled down on that tragedy because of our egos and our comfortableness and through our complacency of allowing things like racial profiling to continue to be part of our everyday experience. When I asked the audience how many of them have experienced racial profiling, half of the hands in the room went up. A half-century after MLK Jr. died for our dreams, many of us are pretending there's not a problem as long as the problem isn't affecting our family directly right now.
Our young people are our future. What we sow into them today, we will reap tomorrow. In the next 20-30 years, the faces I saw in that room last night will become the faces of corporate American leadership, elected officials, police chiefs and others I will depend on for a good quality of life. Maybe one of them will become the next Mark Zuckerberg, who at 23, created Facebook for us to express ourselves, pool resources and create movements of societal change. Or maybe one of them will become the next Alex Ohanian, who started Reddit at 22 years old. Or maybe that person won't live past the age of 25 because of an LAPD racial profiling stop gone terribly wrong or suffer a 20-year sentence because a cop in Baltimore plants drugs on them while they are home on summer break hanging out with their friends.
We need to be proactive and work together to reach out to young people everywhere and work with them. At one point during the Q&A last night, a young lady asked me what kept me going and were there times I wanted to quit while making this film. I said I wanted to quit no less than 100 times. When some of my friends turned on me for going up against a broken police system. Some others for supporting the police who are doing a good job. When I had to make choices between eating or spending money on production. Every time I turned the TV on and someone else had been killed by police. And when the police were killed in Dallas. And then I looked at the young lady and said but every time I wanted to quit, I would see someone like you, who reminded me of my daughter or my granddaughter, and I kept going for them. For you. And I looked out into the audience and I saw this big young man in the front row, and I said that I kept going so that this young man here in the front row won’t wind up like a Mike Brown or an Eric Garner.
And that’s when the tears started flowing from my eyes because I thought which of them would find themselves sprawled out on a sidewalk bleeding to death because we didn't have the courage to stand up and complete the mission started generations before us.
The stories I heard after the Q&A, as many of them lined up to speak with me, were both heartbreaking and inspiring. One wants to become mayor. One told me that our film was a life defining moment for him. One is studying to become an astrophysicist. One is black and gay and spoke with me about the deep pain he has suffered his entire life being black growing up in white neighborhoods and from blacks because he's gay. I had a friend who killed himself because of similar feelings and experiences.
Our young people are counting on us to train them to become leaders to save us from ourselves. I’m redoubling my efforts to make sure everyone in America sees this film, has similar discussions and does something about it. I'm going to need your help. Please host a screening of WALKING WHILE BLACK: L.O.V.E. Is The Answer and help us grow our L.O.V.E. Is The Answer Movement. You can learn how to get involved in making a difference with us at www.walkingwhileblackthemovie.com.
Peace & L.O.V.E.,
A.J.