Get Out? has been a box office smash, surpassing the $100 million mark and scoring a 99 percent score on Rotten Tomatoes. However, the flick and its British lead Daniel Kaluuya have been critique by Samuel L. Jackson.
The ?Kong: Skull Island? star criticized the decision to cast the British actor over an African American actor in the lead role.
Seemingly bothered by Jackson?s problematic comments, Kaluuya, who was born in London to Ugandan parents, makes his voice heard with having to prove his ?blackness in an interview with GQ.
Quote?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.
Let me say, I?m not trying to culture-vulture the thing. I empathize. That script spoke to me. I?ve been to Ugandan weddings, and funerals, and seen that cousin bring a white girl. That?s a thing in all communities. I really respect African American people. I just want to tell black stories.
This is the frustrating thing, bro?in order to prove that I can play this role, I have to open up about the trauma that I?ve experienced as a black person. I have to show off my struggle so that people accept that I?m black. No matter that every single room I go to I?m usually the darkest person there. You know what I?m saying? I kind of resent that mentality. I?m just an individual. You probably feel that as a writer, too. Just because you?re black, you taken and used to represent something. It mirrors what happens in the film.
I resent that I have to prove that I?m black. I don?t know what that is. I?m still processing it.?
