Prepare to hear me talk about the film Fruitvale Station a lot in the coming weeks. It is a moving, beautiful, horrific tale of the most unjust murder of Oscar Grant by the Bay Area Rapid Transit police. 

I cried. I felt emptied emotionally and then felt that emptiness replaced with rage. No report on Oscar Grant can come close to humanizing him the way actor Michael B. Jordan did. Every actor in this film deserves extreme high praise for the care with which they played their parts. I felt present in the lives of those portrayed, and their loss was my loss.

There is so much bullshit to which we can devote our time. I know I’ve done more than my fair share. However, I implore you: if you have ever respected my opinion on any matter, trust me in this insistence. See this film. Endure the discomfort and pain with the knowledge that your experience of it is discretionary and for too many such pain and victimization are recurring and obligatory.

Visit the film’s very active website and commit to taking even modest action, even if just sharing this post. 

Listen to my friend Dahni-El Giles and I discuss the movie in our raw emotional state moments after leaving the theater. 

Check out the work of Dr. Phillip Atiba Goff at The Center for Policing Equity, #policingequity

Devote some of your own precious resources—your time and empathy—to this moment. I thank you in advance as do all who believe in and work toward a more just world.

I’m still crying.