“Now question is every n***a with dreads for the cause?/Is every n***a with golds for the fall? Nah, So don’t get caught in appearance…” — André 3000
TheGrio may have picked a suitable actor in Anthony Mackie to talk about Selma’s Oscar snub. Too bad he apparently said all the wrong things.
The actor–who ironically is starring in the biracial acceptance film Black or White–actually feels that race conversations are becoming too commonplace in Hollywood and voiced his opinion as such.
“People are just tired of being bombarded with race right now,” he said. “So everybody is shying away from certain topics and certain movies. If you look at all the movies and actors that are nominated, they all gave damn good performances. Me specifically, if that’s something I want, I have to step my game up. I have to do better movies and I have to act better. Hollywood believes that there’s no market overseas for Black actors. “They say that about Denzel Washington, they say they have no foreign value. If we’re not financing and doing our own stories, we can’t expect to see ourselves come award season.”
But it was his next comments that were perceived as racial profiling that had Black Twitter up in arms.
“Like my nephew wanted to grow dreadlocks. I’m like fine, I’ll sit you down and I’ll watch The First 48 with you and everybody you see on that show, that’s doing something wrong, they’re black dudes with dreadlocks. So, do you want to be seen as part of the problem or do you want to be an individual?”
“Let’s just say you have locks and you walking down the street,” he continued. “The police pull you over and say you fit the description of somebody. You start yelling and arguing with the cops. Next thing you know you pressed up against the wall going to jail for something you’re not even involved in just because you look like somebody and you don’t know how to handle yourself.”
It doesn’t take a racial psychology major to know what context those comments were taken in.
Hit the gallery below to see the slander Anthony Mackie set himself up for.
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Photo: Daniel Deme/WENN.com
