Delroy Lindo trends on Twitter after ‘The Good Fight’ clip where he pushes newscaster to use slur goes viral
English–American actor and theatre director Delroy Lindo was trending on Twitter. Watching a famous person’s name trend on the internet leads to a terrible amount of anxiety for fans of the said person because the reasons for the trend are usually either that the person has died or they have done something terrible. Off late, in the last month or so, another reason has cropped up -- they have tested positive for COVID-19, the pandemic that has gripped the world right now. Fortunately, all three of those reasons did not apply to Lindo.
The reason why thousands of people were tweeting about the 67-year-old actor was a clip from his CBS show, ‘The Good Fight’. The show is a spin-off of the cult classic legal drama series ‘The Good Wife’, created by Robert King, Michelle King, and Phil Alden Robinson, and will soon begin its fourth season.
The clip in question is from the sixth episode of the second season, titled ‘Day 443’. In the clip, Lindo, who plays Adrian Boseman, an attorney and a name-partner at the legal firm Reddick, Boseman and Lockhart, appears as a panelist on a TV news channel, where the topic of discussion for the night was: “Is racism a one-way street?”
A visibly annoyed Lindo sits silently on the panel, unwilling to be the “angry black man” stereotype his character in the show hates, as a co-panelist -- a white man -- talks about how Caucasians too were victims of racism. He obnoxiously says, “I see racism against whites every day. Every single day. Yet, I’m a racist for pointing that out?”
When Lindo refuses to respond to the panelist’s repeated baits, the newscaster asks, “I think Chuck is pointing out a double standard here. Take hip-hop. We’ve talked about this on the show before. You have African-American rappers saying N-word this and N-word that, but a caucasian can’t.”
An unnervingly calm Lindo quietly responds, “So, say it. Say the word you want to say.” When the newscaster says that he can’t, Lindo eggs him on, “Sure you can. Say it right now… I will say it with you.”
When the other panelist calls this hypocritical, adding that he knew they couldn’t say it, Lindo says, “Sure you can. This is America!” As the debate ended, Lindo continued to egg them on repeating the first syllable of the N-word.
Why people of other races should not use the N-Word even when African-Americans can and do, has always been a contentious debate for no reason at all. It was a derogatory slur that was used on slaves and the resurgence of it in the language is nothing but taking ownership of the word by African-Americans who continue to suffer racism every day.
Author Ta-Nehisi Coates once articulated quite nicely, “So here comes this word that you feel like you invented. And now somebody will tell you how to use the word that you invented. ‘Why can’t I use it? Everyone else gets to use it. You know what? That’s racism that I don’t get to use it. You know, that’s racist against me. You know, I have to inconvenience myself and hear this song and I can’t sing along. How come I can’t sing along?’"
"The experience of being a hip-hop fan and not being able to use the word [expletive] is actually very, very insightful. It will give you just a little peek into the world of what it means to be black. Because to be black is to walk through the world and watch people doing things that you cannot do, that you can’t join in and do. So I think there’s actually a lot to be learned from refraining," Coates further said.
Why did this clip from ‘The Good Fight’ starring Lindo go viral again today? It’s difficult to assess. But it did and people can’t stop praising Lindo’s prowess as an actor, on the show, in the scene, and in general. As one Twitter user pointed out, “You would think Delroy Lindo was acting here... but he wasn’t. This is 243 years of collective ‘tired of your sh*t’ right here.”
'The Good Fight' Season 4 will return April 9, on CBS All Access.
