Samuel L. Jackson caused some controversey last week when he seemed to hit out at Get Out’s Daniel Kaluuya by saying he wonders how an Black American would have played the lead role.
It led to quite a lot of conversation about Black Brits playing Black Americans in movies and in the end Jackson half apologized but we had not heard from Daniel Kaluuya himself, until now!
Daniel is a busy man these days and was already building up a strong resume with Black Mirror and Skins, this guy is a great actor and I can’t wait to see where he is headed!
But he is after-all a black man, a dark skinned black man and Jackson’s comments seems to have irked him a little despite his respect for the man.
He sat down for an interview with GQ and they asked:
Samuel L. Jackson made the critique that your experience may not relate to the black American experience. You’ve addressed in other interviews that there are many shared experiences between people of color, but I’m curious about your thoughts on the differences and similarities between the UK and the U.S. on how race works.
He replied:
Big up Samuel L. Jackson, because here’s a guy who has broken down doors. He has done a lot so that we can do what we can do.
Here’s the thing about that critique, though. I’m dark-skinned, bro. When I’m around black people I’m made to feel “other” because I’m dark-skinned. I’ve had to wrestle with that, with people going “You’re too black.” Then I come to America and they say, “You’re not black enough.” I go to Uganda, I can’t speak the language. In India, I’m black. In the black community, I’m dark-skinned. In America, I’m British. Bro!
[Black people in the UK], the people who are the reason I’m even about to have a career, had to live in a time where they went looking for housing and signs would say, “NO IRISH. NO DOGS. NO BLACKS.” That’s reality. Police would round up all these black people, get them in the back of a van, and wrap them in blankets so their bruises wouldn’t show when they beat them. That’s the history that London has gone through. The Brixton riots, the Tottenham riots, the 2011 riots, because black people were being killed by police. That’s what’s happening in London. But it’s not in the mainstream media. Those stories aren’t out there like that. So people get an idea of what they might think the experience is.
Respect for this answer!!!!
Read the whole interview here.
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