“They Can’t Kill Us All” by Wesley Lowery is a relatively recently published book detailing incidents of police shootings. And really also White vigilante shootings of Black people in America. Many of whom were unarmed. The book charts the author’s experience as a relatively new journalist. But it also discusses the rise of the Black Lives Matter Movement in response to the killings of unarmed Black people.
Tag: <span>young Black male</span>
“Beasts of No Nation” is a 2015 Netflix film based on Uzodinma Iweala’s 2005 novel about a boy who becomes a child soldier. Set in an unnamed West African country, a violent civil war is being fought between the military and rebel groups. Agu (Abraham Atta) is a small boy from a loving tight-knit family living in a village that is in the path of the approaching armies. When the fighting spreads to his village it is destroyed and his family torn apart, Agu flees in search of safety but instead finds himself drafted to fight in a rebel group under the Commandant (Idris Elba).
“Hoop Dreams” is a classic 1994 documentary directed by Steve James about two boys growing up in Chicago and their dream of playing professional basketball in the NBA. In pursuit of that, they attempt to move through the basketball development and recruitment pipeline. While much of the film focuses on the triumphs and letdowns of their high school basketball years we also see the ups and downs of their lives off the court.
“Straight Outta Compton” is a 2015 F. Gary Gray directed film about NWA, an iconic rap group that helped launch gangsta rap.. In some ways, Straight Outta Compton follows the path of the typical music biopic where you see the group living their lives and how they come together. We see the guys make their first forays into recording the songs that would give rise to gangsta rap. Releasing a hit song followed by a successful album brings the guys attention but shady business dealings and egos threaten to tear the group apart.
“The Autobiography of an Ex-Colored Man” by James Weldon Johnson is the fictional account of a biracial man looking back over his life. The story is told in the first-person though the narrator remains unnamed and is never described physically. He tells of being born in the South and growing up in Connecticut where he learns that he is a very light-skinned biracial boy who some assume is White. As a young man he sets out on his own and travels to different parts of America and later Europe, recounting his experiences in Black and White society along the way.