12 things to watch to educate yourself about systemic racism
Gabbi Shaw
- Juneteenth is a holiday dedicated to the emancipation of enslaved Black Americans on June 19.
- The US still has a long way to go in terms of systemic racism, inequality, and police brutality.
Part of education includes reading books and watching documentaries, but watching fictional movies or dramatizations of real stories can be equally as illuminating.
We've picked nine movies and a miniseries that will help people understand the history of racism in this country, from the Martin Luther King Jr. biopic "Selma" to the 1961 film "A Raisin in the Sun," to the horror-comedy "Get Out."
Keep scrolling for our recommendations of 10 movies and TV shows to watch to educate yourself.
In 2018's "The Hate U Give," which is based on the novel of the same name, high school student Starr finds her voice as an activist after her friend is shot by a police officer in front of her.
"Starr witnesses the fatal shooting of her childhood best friend Khalil at the hands of a police officer. Now, facing pressure from all sides of the community, Starr must find her voice and stand up for what's right," according to IMDb.
"It's so gripping to watch — as well as being, in places, just delightfully funny — that you never feel you're being preached to. It picks you up in one place and sets you down in another," wrote Stephanie Zacharek of Time.
The film's director, George Tillman Jr., announced on Twitter that "The Hate U Give" was free to stream in June 2020, after the death of George Floyd.
"I hope the film provides a bit of understanding. Our story is a reminder to never be afraid to raise our voice in the name of justice. We must stand up for what we believe. The time for change is now!" he wrote.
In June 2022, you can rent or buy it on Amazon Prime, or stream it on the FX Now website.
Michael B. Jordan and Jamie Foxx starred in "Just Mercy" in 2019, which is based on the real case of Walter McMillian and his lawyer Bryan Stevenson.
According to IMDb, "Just Mercy" is about the "world-renowned civil rights defense attorney Bryan Stevenson," who "works to free a wrongly condemned death row prisoner." That prisoner, McMillian, was convicted for the murder of a white woman. Stevenson is also famous for founding the Equal Justice Initiative.
"'Just Mercy' captures Bryan Stevenson's story for posterity's sake. We shall never forget," wrote Alan Ng of Film Threat.
See where you can stream "Just Mercy" on the film's website.
Ava DuVernay's miniseries on Netflix, "When They See Us," is based on the case of the Central Park Five, a group of teenagers who were wrongfully convicted in the rape of a jogger.
As the Netflix summary states, "Five teens from Harlem become trapped in a nightmare when they're falsely accused of a brutal attack in Central Park. Based on the true story." The series, which is split into four parts, delves deep into the fear and racism that surrounded the case.
Hannah Giorgis of The Atlantic wrote, "In rendering their journeys, DuVernay pays careful attention to the terrifying power of language, especially the animalistic rhetoric with which prosecutors and journalists referred to the teens."
"Loving" is about the real-life couple Richard and Mildred Loving, who were at the center of the Supreme Court case that took down the ban on interracial marriage.
"The story of Richard and Mildred Loving, a couple whose arrest for interracial marriage in 1960s Virginia began a legal battle that would end with the Supreme Court's historic 1967 decision," according to IMDb.
"What is radical about [Jeff] Nichols' film is the extent to which he focuses not on the legal fight and ensuing national attention but on the Lovings themselves," wrote Newsweek's Tom Shone.
Ryan Coogler's directorial debut "Fruitvale Station" tells the story of the last day of Oscar Grant's life before he was shot in the back by a police officer.
"Fruitvale Station" is another dramatization of a real crime — Oscar Grant died in 2009 after he was detained and shot in the back by a police officer at a San Francisco BART station. He was 22 years old.
Matthew Lucas of The Dispatch wrote, "It's a rough sit, sometimes unpleasant, and ultimately deeply painful, but somehow an essential watch."
David Oyelowo completely inhabits the role of Martin Luther King Jr. in "Selma," which follows the Selma to Montgomery Marches in 1965.
"Fueled by a gripping performance from David Oyelowo, 'Selma' draws inspiration and dramatic power from the life and death of Martin Luther King, Jr. — but doesn't ignore how far we remain from the ideals his work embodied," wrote Rotten Tomatoes.
"'Selma' is spectacularly staged, impressively acted and narratively satisfying. But it is also something much, much more and we need much, much more like it," wrote Ryan Syrek of The Reader.
Director Ava DuVernay announced on Twitter that Paramount made "Selma" free to rent for the month of June in 2020. "We've gotta understand where we've been to strategize where we're going. History helps us create the blueprint. Onward," her tweet read.
"Get Out" is both a horror movie and a critique on so-called "woke" white people.
No spoilers; the twists and turns of "Get Out" should be seen on screen. But the basic gist: An interracial couple, Rose and Chris, travel to Rose's parents' house so Chris can meet them, but Rose and her parents are white, and her parents don't know her boyfriend is Black. Drama and uncomfortable jokes ensue.
"The villains here aren't southern rednecks or neo-Nazi skinheads, or the so-called 'white supremacy.' They're middle-class white liberals. The kind of people who read this website. The kind of people who shop at Trader Joe's, donate to the ACLU and would have voted for Obama a third time if they could," The Guardian wrote.
The 1961 film "A Raisin in the Sun," based on the play of the same name, remains relevant over 60 years later.
The movie centers on the Younger family, a Black family living in a city. The family must decide what to do with a $10,000 life insurance check. It deals with themes of racism, feminism, and economic inequality, among others.
A 2019 retrospective from Film Frenzy calls the film "a groundbreaking work that manages to be both specific to the African-American experience and universal in its themes of hope, change, and upward mobility."
"If Beale Street Could Talk," based on the novel of the same name, is about a couple who has to deal with a false rape accusation and racist police.
The film centers around Tish and Fonny, who have began dating after being friends their whole lives. When Fonny is falsely accused of rape, Tish and her family work together to support each other and try to get Fonny freed.
Matthew Norman of the London Evening Standard wrote, "[Barry] Jenkins doesn't scratch the surface of the Black American experience. He takes you deep into its bones and suggests that far less has changed than the naive may believe."
Spike Lee's seminal film "Do the Right Thing" all takes place on the hottest day of the summer in the Brooklyn neighborhood of Bed-Stuy.
According to IMDb, "On the hottest day of the year on a street in the Bedford-Stuyvesant section of Brooklyn, everyone's hate and bigotry smolders and builds until it explodes into violence."
"If you think Spike Lee's 'Do the Right Thing' is dangerous, let me ask you: Aren't the problems he addresses, and our silent neglect of them, far more dangerous?" asked Eva Yaa Asantewaa of OutWeek.
Boots Riley's absurdist black comedy "Sorry to Bother You," is both a satirical takedown of capitalism and a critique on racism in the workplace.
In "Sorry to Bother You," released in 2018, Lakeith Stanfield stars as Cash Green, an unemployed Black man (played by David Cross) who gets a job at a shady telemarketing company who can only get ahead using his "white voice."
As he climbs the corporate ladder, he distances himself from a union drive at his company, and makes moral compromises he didn't think he had in him — and a lot more, but we don't want to spoil the truly absurd turn this movie takes.
"It's about exploitation and profit, about the fetishization of Black bodies and the indignities of code-switching, about giving up your dignity and trying to find love. Careening from office comedy to something like horror, 'Sorry to Bother You' is weird and funny and unsettling, and not quite like anything I've seen before," wrote Vox's Alissa Wilkinson.
"Hidden Figures" is an empowering movie about the Black women who helped the US win the space race.
"Hidden Figures," loosely based on the book of the same name, focuses on three Black women working as NASA in the 1960s: Katherine Johnson (played by Taraji P. Henson), Dorothy Vaughan (played by Octavia Spencer), and Mary Jackson (played by Janelle Monáe), as they confronted both racism and sexism in the workplace.
After years of their contributions to NASA and space travel being erased, "Hidden Figures" is a celebration of their hard work and perserverance, as well as a hard look at what it was like in the struggle to be taken seriously by their peers.
"It might be one of the few Hollywood movies about the civil rights era to imagine that Black lives in the '60s, particularly Black women's lives, were affected not only by racism but also by the space race and the Cold War," wrote K. Austin Collins for The Ringer.
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