Eva Longoria and Charles D. King, producers, revealed at the Produced By conference in June that they have created a talent database based on race to allow studios to explicitly engage with racial discrimination when hiring film crews.
According to Deadline, Longoria stated that “We have to do work” at the conference.
King and Longoria added that they share the “diverse talent,” as Deadline refers to it, with other filmmakers, such as Ava DuVernay who directed the factually-challenged Netflix miniseries, When They See Us, and Colin in Black and White which was a social justice vanity project for Colin Kaepernick.
King agreed with Longoria about the fact that their role in producing involves racial discrimination during the hiring process.
King stated, “A lot of the times we’re taking an enormous leap and you have fill in the gaps.” You just need to keep calling your friends and everyone, but they are out there. There are enough people who have some experience to make the jump to the next level.
Producers see no problem with ethnic discrimination. This echos the ideology of “antiracism” as popularized and promoted by Ibram.X. Kendi. In his book How to Be an Antiracist Kendi wrote that “Antiracist discrimination is the only solution to racism discrimination.” Present discrimination is the only way to end discrimination from the past. Future discrimination is the only way to end discrimination in the present.
Longoria and King claim that the film industry is de facto racist because it has not had a majority of minorities on its crews in the past. To correct the past discrimination, a meritocracy is not the answer. Instead, active discrimination should be used to favor those previously excluded.
