John Ridley is an intelligent and progressive visionary. He is a master of addressing sociopolitical issues both past and present. Brilliant acting, writing. Emmy worthy on all levels.
The backlash that ignited against Guerrilla and John Ridley, that reflected a bigoted outlook on interracial romances between Asian women and Black men really disturbed me as well as an ignorant attitudeJohn Ridley is an intelligent and progressive visionary. He is a master of addressing sociopolitical issues both past and present. Brilliant acting, writing. Emmy worthy on all levels.
The backlash that ignited against Guerrilla and John Ridley, that reflected a bigoted outlook on interracial romances between Asian women and Black men really disturbed me as well as an ignorant attitude towards a historical movement where Asians were involved in the Guerilla/civil rights movement. Ironically, the people who attacked John Ridley are the ones who are expressing a prejudiced attitude, and are not being inclusive to the other minorities who were part of this movement. The media doesn't want to shed a light when some POC are being racist towards other POC. Discrimination exists in all communities where people do not want to be inclusive yet ironically pretend to be "fake woke" while abusing the race card while being racist themselves. I was so saddened about the backlash and hate that John Ridley & Freida Pinto is still being targeted with. The controversy against this series is manufactured, ignorant, and hateful.
John Ridley did NOT erase black women from this movement just because he casted an Asian woman as Jas Mitra as the female lead, which is the actual correct PC casting given that he is giving representation to the hundreds of Asians ( specifically Indians) who were part of this struggle. This reductive spin tarnishing an excellent mini-series with controversy and backlash is very upsetting to read. Neil Kenlock did back John Ridley up as well as other historians can back up him if people do their research because there were other minority groups such as South Asians, Caribbeans, and even Latinos that participated in the British Black Power movement. He said in other interviews that he was inspired by Darcus Howe and Farrukh Dondy's friendship, who was an Indian who was part of the original Black Panthers. Yes, there were Asians who were part of The Black Panthers and John Ridley is groundbreaking in lending in a voice to a character that represents this. He went with an interracial romance instead of a bromance and I can imagine how much these accusations have hurt him considering he is in an interracial marriage with an Asian woman. The media is misportaying him as "shading black women" in a number of slanderous articles when the truth is that he DEFENDED himself to a group of militant radicals who happened to be some black women,at a press conference, who were embodying a racist mentality against the series over the female lead being Indian instead of Black. They are spinning what he said out of context, he referred to his own interracial marriage with his Asian activist wife to defend the interracial relationship on his show as well as had consultants who were part of the movement who defended the fact that Indian men & women were part of this movement. There were a number of prominent Asians who were members of the original Black Panthers. He is still being harassed on twitter and sites by certain prejudiced individuals in this community who are spreading hate against this series.
Zawe Ashton is a Black actress and she is excellent in Guerrilla. There is representation of Black women on this show but a militant group is protesting with hateful attacks because it does not suit their agenda of a Black female being the main protagonist or lead. There are tons of shows featuring prominent Black female characters and interracial relationships but barely any featuring Asians which shows a double standard here.
This is a fictionalized account of two characters that has some historical background, it is not a biographical piece. There is a lack of Asian women who play leads on any tv programs especially South Asian women. John Ridley has always been progressive in showing different types of represenation for all minorities. It is Hollywood who has erased Asian women as being part of civil rights movements in history for years so John Ridley is being groundbreaking in providing that presentation and letting it be known that Asians were involved with The Black Panthers. You can look at any of his previous work including American Crime where Black female characters were crucial to the narrative so those accusations and hate against him is unfounded. I am reading a lot of racist commentary online from certain segments of a community who are being anti-Asian and are offended by a Asian woman being the lead or being in a relationship with a black character. Black people are still mostly the main characters in Guerrilla so I do not see the issue. There are many shows and series on TV that feature Black females as the leads. There are rarely any Asian leads on dramas. People need to be open-minded instead of aggressively imposing their agenda at the expense of other people. Guerilla is a six episode mini-series, obviously not every type of representation would be provided in detail.… Expand
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