AP Essay: Black male humanity shown in 'Fruitvale'

This publicity photo released by The Weinstein Company shows, from left, Michael James, Michael B. Jordan, Trestin George, Thomas Wright, Kevin Durand and Alejandra Nolasco in a scene from the film, "Fruitvale Station." (AP Photo/The Weinstein Company, Ron Koeberer)

Oscar Grant did not deserve to die.

This is the central message of "Fruitvale Station," a film dramatizing the real-life case of the young unarmed black man shot in the back by a white police officer in 2009. It's a common message, often heard in film and life in general. But the way writer/director Ryan Coogler delivers this message is extraordinary.

As portrayed by Michael B. Jordan (beware of plot spoilers ahead) Grant is a great father - and a convicted felon. He loves his girlfriend - and he cheats on her. He wants to hold down a legal job - and he can't make it to work on time. He's a drug dealer who takes time to make his bed in the morning, a hardened convict and a mama's boy - a thuggish angel.



"Everyone either made Oscar out to be a saint, depending on whatever their political agenda was, and on the other side they made him out to be this villain," Coogler said in an interview.


Grant was 22 years old in the early hours of New Year's Day, returning home to Oakland with his girl and other friends. In the film, a fight starts on the train when Grant encounters an enemy from prison. Police detained Grant and his friends on the platform of the Fruitvale station.



When Grant's death hit the news, what much of the public saw was a convicted drug dealer who had been released from prison three months before his death. They saw a troublemaker who police said was resisting arrest. They didn't see everything else that's in "Fruitvale Station."

"If there's one thing missing in our country, it's an acknowledgment of the broad humanity of black folks," Ta-Nehisi Coates recently wrote on his blog at TheAtlantic.com. "Racism - and anti-black racism in particular - is the belief that there's something wrong with black people."




"Fruitvale Station" is not unprecedented. It's part of a recent wave of independent black films that are putting authentic black characters on more screens than ever.


"A more complex, truer, authentic, comprehensive, non-caricature view of any person, of any kind of person, helps us all to understand each other a little bit more," DuVernay said. "When you're only getting one dimension, unfortunately it does do its work, and that is mostly negative."

We have seen the complex depths of black manhood before, from actors such as Sidney Poitier and Denzel Washington, or television's "The Wire," or Kanye West's music catalog. Even major studios are presenting substantial black male roles this year with "12 Years a Slave" and "Lee Daniels' The Butler." (Although the roles are still, well, a slave and a butler.)



"Often times people can deal with certain things happening to people when they don't see them as full human beings," Coogler said. "They're not real to you, you don't know them. What makes somebody a real person is those gray areas."

What were Trayvon Martin's gray areas? All many see is black and white.

"With `Fruitvale' opening the weekend this verdict came down, it's one of these zeitgeist moments that can't be planned and can never be predicted," said DuVernay.


The tragedy that Trayvon Martin did not deserve to die.


Jesse Washington covers race and ethnicity for The Associated Press. He is reachable at http://www.twitter.com/jessewashington or jwashington(at)ap.org.

The Associated Press