I No Longer Watch Videos of Black People Being Killed by Police: Please Stop Saying I Should
An open letter to white readers
For five years, I waited tables at a quirky theme restaurant in Beverly Hills. In my time there, I watched a lot of co-workers come and go but today I want to tell you about Evan. Evan was a white guy from a well-off family. Rather than live off of his family’s wealth, Evan wanted to shirk his privilege for a bit and sling it in the trenches with everyone hustling to pay rent. Despite a tendency to get pretentious when we discussed movies, I liked Evan a lot and we got on well.
One night, we were deliberating the best films we’d seen in the last few years and Evan bought up the Academy Award-winning 12 Years a Slave. I let him wax on about the importance of the film for a bit before I cut him off. “I haven’t seen it,” I told him. “I don’t really intend to.”
Evan was aghast. “It’s amazing! You have to see it! You just have to,” he told me.
“No, Evan, I don’t.” I looked him in the eye and spoke more forcefully, hoping he’d hear what I had to say. “I know a lot about slavery and I don’t need to see a movie depicting it to get how bad it was. 12 Years a Slave is a movie made for you. It’s not for me.”
