Protests continue across the United States in the wake of a police officer killing George Floyd in Minneapolis last week. Many are having discussions about how to address the problem of systemic racism in this country, and while there’s no one answer, people are doing what they can, including people in the entertainment industry.
For example, mega-producer J.J. Abrams — the director of Star Wars: The Force Awakens and The Rise of Skywalker — put out a pretty clear-headed statement on the Instagram page for his production company Bad Robot, where he announced a plan to donate $10 million to anti-racist charities over the next several years:
"Enough is enough. Enough police brutality. Enough outsized privilege. Enough polite conversation. Enough white comfort. Enough lopsided access. Enough exhausting our friends and colleagues. Enough being incurious. Enough being unintentional. Enough injustice. Enough death. ENOUGH.We at Bad Robot are grateful to the many scholars, activists, organizers, and leaders fighting on the frontlines of change in our systemically unjust country. It is that constellation of thinkers and doers who have the blueprint to a more perfect, fair, equitable, and kind union.In this fragile time, words matter, listening is critical, and investment is required. The centuries-long neglect and abuse of our Black brothers and sisters can only be addressed by scalable investment. A massive and thoughtful overhaul of tax policy, one that effectively meets the needs of the many in this country, and not just the few, is long overdue.Corporate and private philanthropy can never achieve the impact needed to address these systemic inequities, but companies and individuals who are able must do what we can until our political leaders lead. We are committing an additional $10 million over the next five years to organizations and efforts committed to anti-racist agendas that close the gaps, lift the poor, and build a just America for all."
Abrams isn’t the only major figure from the entertainment industry making sizable donations to anti-racist organizations — Disney just announced a $5 million pledge, although for context we note that the company took in $69.57 billion in 2019 — but Abrams is right that corporate and private philanthropy alone can’t do much in the end. It has to political leaders who actually enact real change, and government authorities enforce them.
That’s why I like Abrams’ saying that Bad Robot is committing to donations for the next five years: very little will get done if there’s a spurt of donations to anti-racist organizations now that stops when everybody moves on to the next thing. Changing entrenched systems requires leaning on governments — whether federal, state or local — for long periods of time, and that takes consistent funding.
I also like that the statement lays out some specific goals, like changing the tax system, which isn’t an issue I’ve seen brought up much over the past week. Another goal might be overhauling the review process by which police officers are disciplined — to say nothing of the process by which they’re hired — which right now is obviously letting problem officers slip through. It’s one thing to say that we want to fight racism, but that happens through specific changes to specific systems at all levels of government and private industry.
Abrams and his team are starting by donating $200,000 each to Black Futures Lab, Black Lives Matter LA, Community Coalition, Equal Justice Initiative and Know Your Rights Camp. If you’d like to help this effort, here is a great list of resources.
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h/t Gamespot