And Justice For All?

   It has taken me a long while to sit down and write this blog.  After George Floyds murder a long overdue wave took over our country.  We were all forced to take a look at ourselves and our institutions.  At first I was a bit frustrated.  See, I had read all the books and knew most of the history.  I read James Baldwin, Angela Davis, James McBride, Zora Neale Hurston, Langston Hughes and many others.  My closest friends were black.  I have nephews and nieces, both Black and Latinix.  But I am a middle aged white man, so I am the villain.  Why me?  Then I started doing a bit of soul searching.  I am the villain.  I started examining what I had failed to do on my journey.  How had I perpetrated the alienation so many of the people I know were feeling.  We all had to look inward and examine our actions or better yet, our lack of action.  Did I fall in line and follow the herd?

  I represent people for a living.  How can I represent actors of color in the way they are meant to be represented unless I dig into what they are feeling.  I need to know what is happening in the audition rooms.  How are they treated on set.  What are the blatant and not so blatant behaviors my BIPOC clients were experiencing.   I had individual conversations with many.  I asked them to tell me what they face on a daily basis.  I didn't ask for a history lesson. My job is to do the homework on implicit bias.  It is up to me to learn about Jim Crow and Redlining and mass incarceration. However I am not in the rehearsal room when the only Black actor in the show is asked questions about the whys and wherefores of certain script elements because no one hired a consultant of color to help with the dramaturgical elements of the production.  I am not in the trailer when the only Black actress in the commercial is given a spot along the makeup counter and asked to do her own hair because the ad agency didn't hire a hair person versed in Black hair. I am not present when an actor of color walks into the audition room and the entire production team and casting crew are all white faces.  So much of the "art" we are putting out into the world comes through the white gaze.

  I needed to sit down and ask the question, "What can I do"?  I need to be the buffer for those actors who walk the fine line between standing up for themselves and alienating a director or producer.  I need to do what I can to change the dialogue in the casting room.  I need to give my clients a place for their voices to be heard.  Have I always submitted my BIPOC clients for all roles regardless of race?  Yes.  But have I always picked up the phone and pushed to get them seen?   Not as hard as I should have.  Have I made sure there was a consultant in the theater before and after my client participated in a talk back with an audience who might ask questions or have comments that are better answered by someone trained to answer that question?  I have not.  And simply, have I ever asked production if their hair and makeup person had experience with Black skin and hair?  Not before George Floyd.  Believe me these are now questions my agency asks with every deal made.  It isn't revelatory or outside the box.  It is what we should have been doing since day one.

  KMR has held 6 town halls to date with our clients.  Some were just for our BIPOC clients and some were for the entire client list.  We wanted to provide a safe place where out clients can be heard and seen.  Where they could express their anger, frustration and truth.  We encouraged our white clients to listen and learn.  We have committed to continuing the conversation.  We have promised to bring our clients face to face with casting, producers and ad agencies to have a dialogue. We have pledged to up the current percentage of employees of color from our current 25% and making sure management reflects the diversity we want to see in our client list.  We need to do better.  We need to do what we can to move the needle and make it better.  Do I think we will solve this 400 year old problem in my lifetime?  I do not, but if we can make it better for the next generation and the next then we will have contributed in some small way to the fight.

  For the first time, I think the industry is listening and open to having these conversations.  I look forward to the art that will be created in this new atmosphere and I hope you will all take up the mantle to do what you can.