by Melissa Strong

The release of Detroit (2017) raised questions about who gets to tell the story of the 1967 rebellion in which white police officers killed black men. Detroit was written by a white man, Mark Boal, and directed by a white woman, Kathryn Bigelow. This raised some criticism, but Michael Eric Dyson wrote in the New York Times that Bigelow “has done what us black folk often demand white folk do: Take responsibility for your actions and a legacy of hate that is often silently transmitted.” Shining a light on injustice may constitute one way the film industry could take responsibility, but the thorny yet common issue of racial ventriloquism remains.