Michael B Jordan joins protest, asks Hollywood to commit to black hiring: 'Are you policing our storytelling?'
Michael B Jordan lent his voice to protests against police brutality and racial inequality in Los Angeles over the death of George Floyd and called for Hollywood to do its part by hiring more black people for its projects.
Jordan, who was lauded for playing the role of police shooting victim Oscar Grant in 2013's 'Fruitvale Station,' led the crowd at a protest organized by the Big 4 Agencies in the Century City neighborhood of the city and singled out Hollywood.
"You committed to a 50/50 gender parity in 2020," he said in a video that has been making the rounds on Twitter. "Where is the challenge to commit to black hiring? Black content led by black executives, black consultants. Are you policing our storytelling as well? Let us bring our darkness to the light."
You can watch the video here.
In the same speech, Jordan had brought up his role as Oscar Grant and told the crowd that it gave him the "opportunity to feel the pain of his family, his daughter, his mother" and that he "lived with that for a very long time and it weighs on me."
He highlighted his role in 'Fahrenheit 451,' where he played the 'fireman' in a future dystopian America whose job was to burn books that were deemed illegal by the government. "Producing that movie made me really realize the lengths that the government and oppressors will go to keep knowledge out of your hands."
The 33-year-old actor also said he had the "honor" of playing Bryan Stevenson in 'Just Mercy.' Stevenson was a lawyer who graduated from Harvard and moved to Alabama to defend those wrongly condemned or not given proper representation, and regularly encounters racism in the criminal justice system.
"In doing so I learned his [Stevenson's] tactics," he said. "I learned his mentality. I learned his approach to things. Very calm. Very strategic. Very thoughtful. You have to be proximal. You have to be close to [the] issues."
Jordan, who starred in 'Black Panther' — which became the highest-grossing film ever by a black director and has been hailed for its cultural significance — later emphasized that he supports everyone attending the protests and that "we have to be here together."
"What we are doing today will make our values heard and our voices heard," he said, as the crowd cheered. "We've got to keep agitating things. We can`t be complacent. We can't let this moment just pass us by, we have to continue to put our foot on their necks."
Jordan was not the only celebrity who took to the streets in Los Angeles to protest Floyd's Memorial Day while being arrested by four Minneapolis police officers — Derek Chauvin, J Alexander Kueng, Tou Thao, and Thomas Lane.
Multi-Grammy Award-winning musician Billie Eilish was amongst the protesters in Highland Park and was snapped carrying a 'Stop Killing Black People' sign. She was surrounded by demonstrators mostly dressed in black wearing masks and holding up signs in support of the Black Lives Matter movement.