Producers Eva Longoria and Charles D. King revealed this June at the Produced By conference that they are creating a database of talent based on race so that studios can explicitly engage in racial discrimination while hiring for film crews.
“We have to do the work — every time I produce something, I bring my crew list,” Longoria said at the conference, according to a report by Deadline.
Longoria and King added that they share the list of what Deadline calls “diverse talent” between themselves and other filmmakers — such as Ava DuVernay, who helmed the woke, factually-challenged Netflix miniseries When They See Us and Colin in Black and White, a social justice vanity project for former NFL player Colin Kaepernick.
King agreed with Longoria that their role as producers involves racial discrimination in the hiring process.
“A lot of times we’re taking a leap and you have to fill the gaps,” King said. “You just have to keep calling all your friends and everybody but they’re out there. There’s enough people with some level of experience to take the leap to the next level.”
The producers see no issue with active ethnic discrimination, echoing the ideology of “antiracism,” as popularized by Ibram X. Kendi. Kendi famously writes in his book How to Be an Antiracist, “The only remedy to racist discrimination is antiracist discrimination. The only remedy to past discrimination is present discrimination. The only remedy to present discrimination is future discrimination.”
Because film crews have not been comprised of mostly minorities in the past, the film industry has been de facto racist, according to Longoria and King. Therefore, to rectify that past discrimination, a meritocracy inclusive of all races is not the solution but active discrimination in favor of groups that were previously excluded.
You can follow Alana Mastrangelo on Facebook and Twitter at @ARmastrangelo, and on Instagram.
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