What we think about AI largely depends on how we know AI, and most people “know” AI through science fiction. But how well do the AIs in these shows match up with the science? What kinds of stories are we telling ourselves about AI that are pure fiction? And more importantly, what stories _aren’t_ we telling ourselves that we should be? Hear Chris Noessel of scifiinterfaces.com talk about this study and rethink what you “know” about #AI.
The network of in-house, studio, and freelance professionals who work together to create the interfaces in the sci-fi shows we know, love, and critique is large, complicated, and obfuscated. It’s very hard as an outsider to find out who should get the credit for what. So, I don’t try. I rarely identify the creators of the things I critique, trusting that they know who they are. Because of all this, I’m delighted when one of the studios reaches out to me directly. That’s what happened when Territory Studio recently reached out to me regarding the Fritz awards that went out in early February. They’d been involved with four of them! So, we set up our socially-distanced pandemic-approved keyboards, and here are the results.
First, congratulations to Territory Studio on having worked in four of the twelve 2019 Fritz Award nominees!
Chris: What exactly did you do on each of the films?
Marti Romances (founding partner and creative director of Territory Studio San Francisco): We were one of the screen graphic vendors on Ad Astra and our brief was to support specific storybeats, in which the screen content helped to explain or clarify complex plot points. As a speculative vision of the near future, the design brief was to create realistic looking user interfaces that were grounded in military or scientific references and functionality, with the clean minimal look of high-end tech firms, and simple colour palettes befitting of the military nature of the mission. Our screen interfaces can be seen on consoles, monitors and tablet displays, signage and infographics on the Lunar Shuttle, moon base, rovers and Cepheus cockpit sets, among others.”
The biggest challenge on the project was to maintain a balance between the minimalistic and highly technical style that the director requested and the needs of the audience to quickly and easily follow narrative points.”
Ad Astra (New Regency Pictures, 2019)
Men In Black International (nominated for Best Overall)
Andrew Popplestone (creative director of Territory Studio London): The art department asked us to create holotech concepts for MIB Int’l HQ in London, and we were then asked to deliver those in VFX. We worked closely with Dneg to create holographic content and interfaces for their environmental extensions (digital props) in the Lobby and Briefing Room sets. Our work included volumetric wayfinding systems, information points, desk screens and screen graphics. We also created holographic vehicle HUDs.
What I loved about our challenge on this film was to create a design aesthetic that felt part of the MIB universe yet stood on its own as the London HQ. We developed a visual language that drew upon the Art Deco influences from the set design which helped create a certain timeless flavour which was both classic yet futuristic.”
Men in Black: International (Sony Pictures, 2019)
Spider-Man: Far from Home (winner of Best Overall)
Spider-man Far From Home (Marvel Studios, 2019)
Andrew Popplestone: Territory were invited to join the team in pre-production and we started creating visual language and screen interface concepts for Stark technology, Nick Fury technology and Beck / Mysterio technology. We went on to deliver shots for the Stark and Fury technology, including the visual language and interface for Fury Ops Centre in Prague, a holographic display sequence that Fury shows Peter Parker/Spider-Man, and all the shots relating to Stark/E.D.I.T.H. glasses tech.
The EDITH sequence was a really interesting challenge from a storytelling perspective. There was a lot of back and forth editorially with the logic and how the technology would help tell the story and that is when design for film is most rewarding.
Spider-Man far from Home (Columbia Pictures, 2019)
Marti Romances: We were also pleased to see that Endgame won Audience Choice because that was based on work we had produced for the first part, Avengers: Infinity War. We joined Marvel’s team on Infinity War and created all the technology interfaces seen in Peter Quill’s new spaceship, a more evolved version of the original Milano. We also created screen graphics for the Avengers Compound set.
We then continued to work on-screen graphics for Endgame, and as Quill’s ship had been badly damaged at the end of Infinity War, we reflected this in the screens by overlaying our original UI animations with glitches signifying damage. We also updated Avengers Compound screens, created original content for Stark Labs and the 1960’s lab and created a holographic dancing robots sequence for the Karaoke set.
Avengers: Endgame (Marvel Studios, 2019)
What did you find challenging and rewarding about the work on these films?
David Sheldon-Hicks (Founder & Executive Creative Director): It’s always a challenge to create original designs that support a director’s vision and story and actor’s performance. There are so many factors and conversations that play into the choices we make about visual language, colour palette, iconography, data visualisation, animation, 3D elements, aesthetic embellishments, story beats, how to time content to tie into actor’s performance, how to frame content to lead the audience to the focal point, and more. The reward is that our work becomes part of the storytelling and if we did it well, it feels natural and credible within the context and narrative.
Hollywood seems to make it really hard to find out who contributed what to a film. Any idea why this is?
David Sheldon-Hicks: Well, the studio controls the press strategy and their focus is naturally all about the big vision and the actors and actresses. Also, creative vendors are subject to press embargoes with restrictions on image sharing which means that it’s challenging for us to take advantage of the release window to talk about our work. Having said that, there are brilliant magazines like Cinefex that work closely with the studios to cover the making of visual effects films. So, once we are able to talk about our work we try to as much as is possible.
But Territory do more than films; we work with game developers, brands, museums and expos, and more recently with smartwatch and automobile manufactures.
Chris: To make sure I understand that correctly, the difference is that Art Department work is all about FUI, where VFX are the creation of effects (not on screen in the diegesis) like light sabers, spaceships, and creatures? Things like that?
When we first started out, our work for the Art Department was strictly screen graphics and FUI. Screen graphics can be any motion design on a screen that gives life to a set or explains a storybeat, and FUI (Fictional User Interface) is a technology interface, for example screens for navigation, engineering, weapons systems, communications, drone fees, etc.
VFX relates to Visual Effects, (not to be confused with Special Effects which describes physical effects, explosions or fires on set, for example.) VFX include full CGI environments, set extensions, CGI props, etc. Think the giant holograms that walk through Ghost In the Shell (2017), or the holographic signage and screens seen in the Men In Black International lobby. And while some screens are shot live on-set, some of those screens may need to be adjusted in post, using a VFX pipeline. In this case we work with the Production VFX Supervisor to make sure that our design concept can be taken into post.
Mindhunter (Denver and Delilah Productions, 2017)Shanghai Fortress (HS Entertainment Group, 2019)Goldfish holograms and street furniture CG props from Ghost in the Shell (Paramount Pictures, 2017)
What, in your opinion, makes for a great fictional user interface?
David Sheldon-Hicks: That’s a good question. Different screens need to do different things. For example, there are ambient screens that help to create background ‘noise’ – think of a busy mission control and all the screens that help set the scene and create a tense atmosphere. The audience doesn’t need to see all those screens in detail, but they need to feel coherent and do that by reinforcing the overall visual language.
Then there are the hero screens that help to explain plot points. These tie into specific ‘story beats’ and are only in shot for about 3 seconds. There’s a lot that needs to come together in that moment. The FUI has to clearly communicate the narrative point, visualise and explain often complex information at a glance. If it’s a science fiction story, the screen has to convey something about that future and about its purpose; it has to feel futuristic yet be understandable at the same time. The interaction should feel credible in that world so that the audience can accept it as a natural part of the story. If it achieves all that and manages to look and feel fresh and original, I think it could be a great FUI.
Chris: What about “props”? Say, the door security in Prometheus, or the tablets in Ad Astra. Are those ambient or hero?
That depends on whether they are created specifically to support a storybeat. For example, the tablet in Ad Astra and the screen in The Martian where the audience and characters understand that Whatney is still alive, both help to explain context, while door furniture is often embellishment used to convey a standard of technology and if it doesn’t work or is slow to work it can be a narrative device to build tension and drama. Because a production can be fluid and we never really know exactly which screens will end up in camera and for how long, we try to give the director and DOP (director of photography) as much flexibility as possible by taking as much care over ambient screens as we do for hero screens.
The Martian (Twentieth Century Fox, 2015)
Where do you look for inspiration when designing?
David Sheldon-Hicks: Another good question! Prometheus really set our approach in that director Ridley Scott wanted us to stay away from other cinematic sci-fi references and instead draw on art, modern dance choreography and organic and marine life for our inspiration. We did this and our work took on an organic feel that felt fresh and original. It was a great insight that we continue to apply when it’s appropriate. In other situations, the design brief and references are more tightly controlled, for good reason. I’m thinking of Ad Astra and The Martian, which are both based on science fact, and Zero Dark Thirty and Wolf’s Call, which are in effect docudramas that require absolute authenticity in terms of design.
Ad Astra (New Regency Pictures, 2019), The Martian (Twentieth Century Fox, 2015), Zero Dark Thirty (Columbia Pictures, 2012), and The Wolf’s Call (Pathé, 2019)
What makes for a great FUI designer?
David Sheldon-Hicks: We look for great motion designers, creatively curious team players who enjoy R&D and data visualisation, are quick learners with strong problem-solving skills.
There are so many people involved in sci-fi interfaces for blockbusters. How is consistency maintained across all the teams?
David Sheldon-Hicks: We have great producers, and a structured approach to briefings and reviews to ensure the team is on track. Also, we use Autodesk Shotgun, which helps to organise, track and share the work to required specifications and formats, and remote review and approve software which enables us to work and collaborate effectively across teams and time zones.
I understand the work is very often done at breakneck speeds. How do you create something detailed and spectacular with such short turnaround times?
David Sheldon-Hicks: Broadly speaking, the visual language is the first thing we tackle and once approved, that sets the design aesthetic across an asset package. We tend to take a modular approach that allows us to create a framework into which elements can plug and play. On big shows we look at design behaviours for elements, animations and transitions and set those up as widgets. After we have automated as much as we can, we can become more focussed on refining the specific look and feel of individual screens to tie into storybeats.
That sounds fascinating. Can you share a few images that allow us to see a design language across these phases?
I can share a few screens from The Martian that show you how the design language and all screens are developed to feel cohesive across a set.
What thing about the industry do you think most people in audiences would be surprised by?
David Sheldon-Hicks: It would probably surprise most people to know how unglamorous filmmaking is and how much thought goes into the details. It’s an incredible effort by a huge amount of people and from creative vendors it demands 24-hour delivery, instant response times, time zone challenges, early mornings starts on-set, and so on. It can be incredibly challenging and draining but we give so much to it; like every prop and costume accessory, every detail on a screen has a purpose and is weighed up and discussed.
How do you think that FUI in cinema has evolved over the past, say, 10 years?
David Sheldon-Hicks: When we first started out in 2010, green screen dominated and it was rare to find directors who preferred to work with on-set screens. Directors like Ridley Scott (Prometheus, 2012), Kathryn Bigelow (Zero Dark Thirty, 2012) and James Gunn (Guardians of the Galaxy, 2014) who liked it for how it supports actors’ performances and contributes to ambience and lighting in-camera, used it and eventually it gained in popularity as is reflected in our film credits. In time, volumetric design became to suggest advanced technology and we incorporated 3D elements into our screens, like in Avengers; Age of Ultron (2015). Ultimately this led to full holographic elements, like the giant advertising holograms and 3D signage we created for Ghost in the Shell (2017). Today, briefs still vary but we find that authenticity and credibility continue to be paramount. Whatever we make, it has to feel seamless and natural to the story world.
Where do you expect the industry might go in the future? (Acknowledging that it’s really hard to see past the COVID-19 pandemic.)
David Sheldon-Hicks: On the industry front, virtual production has come into its own by necessity and we expect to see more of that in future. We also now find that the art department and VFX are collaborating as more integrated teams, with conversations that cross the production and post-production. As live rendered CG becomes more established in production, it will be interesting to see what becomes of on-set props and screens. I suspect that some directors will continue to favour it while others will enjoy the flexibility that VFX offers. Whatever happens, we have made sure to gear up to work as the studios and directors prefer.
I know that Territory does work for “real world” clients in addition to cinema. How does your work in one domain influence work in the other?
David Sheldon-Hicks: Clients often come to us because they have seen our FUI in a Marvel film, or in The Martian or Blade Runner 2049, and they want that forward-facing look and feel to their product UI. We try, within the limitations of real-world constraints, to apply a similar creative approach to client briefs as we do to film briefs, combining high production values with a future-facing aesthetic style. Hence, our work on the Huami Amazfit smartwatch tapped into a superhero aesthetic that gave data visualisations and infographics a minimalistic look with smooth animated details and transitions between functions and screens. We applied the same approach to our work with Medivis’ innovative biotech AR application which allows doctors to use a HoloLens headset to see holographically rendered clinical images and transpose these on to a physical body to better plan surgical procedures.
Similarly, our work for automobile manufacturers applies our experience of designing HUDS and navigation screens for futuristic vehicles to next-generation cars.
Avengers: Age of Ultron (Marvel Studios, 2015)
Blade Runner 2049 (Columbia Pictures, 2017)
Huami Amazfit
Medivis
Lastly, I like finishing interviews with these two questions. What’s your favorite sci-fi interface that someone else designed?
David Sheldon-Hicks: Well, I have to say the FUI in the original Star Wars film is what made me want to design film graphics. But, my favourite has got to be the physical interface seen in the Flight of the Navigator. There is something so human about how the technology adapts to serve the character, rather than the other way around, that it feels like all the technology we create is leading up to that moment.
Flight of the Navigator (Producers Sales Organization, 1986)
What’s next for the studio?
David Sheldon-Hicks: We want to come out of the pandemic lockdown in a good place to continue our growth in London and San Francisco, and over time pursue plans to open in other locations. But in terms of projects, we’ve got a lot of exciting stuff coming up and look forward to Series 1 of Brave New World this summer and of course, No Time To Die in November.
The Black Lives Matter protests are still going strong, 14 days after George Floyd was murdered by police in Minneapolis, and thank goodness. Things have to change. It still feels a little wan to post anything to this blog about niche interests in the design of interfaces in science fiction, but I also want to wrap Blade Runner up and post an interview I’ve had waiting in the wings for a bit so I can get to a review of Black Panther (2018) to further support black visibility and Black Lives Matter issues on this platform that I have. So in the interest of that, here’s the report card for Blade Runner.
It is hard to understate Blade Runner’s cultural impact. It is #29 of hollywoodreporter.com’s best movies of all time. Note that that is not a list of the best sci-fi of all time, but of all movies.
When we look specifically at sci-fi, Blade Runner has tons of accolades as well. Metacritic gave it a score of 84% based on 15 critics, citing “universal acclaim” across 1137 ratings. It was voted best sci-fi film by The Guardian in 2004. In 2008, Blade Runner was voted “all-time favourite science fiction film” in the readers’ poll in New Scientist (requires a subscription, but you can see what you need to in the “peek” first paragraph). The Final Cut (the version used for this review) boasts a 92% on rottentomatoes.com. In 1993 the U.S. National Film Registry selected it for preservation in the Library of Congress as being “culturally, historically, or aesthetically significant.” Adam Savage penned an entire article in 2007 for Popular Mechanics, praising the practical special effects, which still hold up. It just…it means a lot to people.
As is my usual caveat, though, this site reviews not the film, but the interfaces that appear in the film, and specifically, across three aspects.
Sci: B (3 of 4) How believable are the interfaces?
My first review was titled “8 Reasons the Voight-Kampf Machine is shit” so you know I didn’t think too highly of that. But also Deckard’s front door key wouldn’t work like that, and the photo inspector couldn’t work like that. So I’m taken out of the film a lot for these things just breaking believability.
It’s not all 4th-wall-crumbling-ness. Bypassing the magical anti-gravity of the spinners, the pilot interfaces are pretty nice. The elevator is bad design, but quite believable. The VID-PHŌN is serviceable. Replicants are the primary novum in the story, so the AGI gets a kind-of genre-wide pass, and though the design is terrible, it’s the kind of stupidity we see in the world, so, sure.
Fi: B (3 of 4) How well do the interfaces inform the narrative of the story?
The Voight-Kampf Machine excels at this. It’s uncanny and unsettling, and provides nice cinegenic scenes that telegraph a broader diegesis and even feels philosophical. The Photo Inspector, on the surface, tells us that Deckard is good at his job, as morally bankrupt as it is.
The Spinners and VID-PHŌN do some heavy lifting for worldbuilding, and as functional interfaces do what they need to do, though they are not key storybeats.
But there were lots of missed opportunities. The Elevator and the VID-PHŌN could have reinforced the constant assault of advertisement. The Photo Inspector could have used an ad-hoc tangible user interface to more tightly integrate who Deckard is with how he does his work and the despair of his situation. So no full marks.
The official, meh, John Alvin poster.
Interfaces: F (0 of 4) How well do the interfaces equip the characters to achieve their goals?
This is where the interfaces fail the worst. The Voight-Kampf Machine is, as mentioned in the title of the post, shit. Deckard’s elevator forces him to share personally-identifiable information. The Front Door key cares nothing about his privacy and misses multifactor authentication. The Spinner looks like a car, but works like a VTOL aircraft. The Replicants were engineered specifically to suffer, and rebel, and infiltrate society, to no real diegetic point.
The VID-PHŌN is OK, I guess.
Most of the interfaces in the film “work” because they were scripted to work, not because they were designed to work, and that makes for very low marks.
Final Grade C (6 of 12), Matinée.
I have a special place in my heart for both great movies with faltering interfaces, and unappreciated movies with brilliant ones. Blade Runner is one of the former. But for its rich worldbuilding, its mood, and the timely themes of members of an oppressed class coming head-to-head with a murderous police force, it will always be a favorite. Don’t not watch this film because of this review. Watch it for all the other reasons.
Much of my country has erupted this week, with the senseless, brutal, daylight murder of George Floyd (another in a long, wicked history of murdering black people), resulting in massive protests around the word, false-flag inciters, and widespread police brutality, all while we are still in the middle of a global pandemic and our questionably-elected president is trying his best to use it as his pet Reichstag fire to declare martial law, or at the very least some new McCarthyism. I’m not in a mood to talk idly about sci-fi. But then I realized this particular post perfectly—maybe eerily—echoes themes playing out in the real world. So I’m going to work out some of my anger and frustration at the ignorant de-evolution of my country by pressing on with this post.
Part of the reason I chose to review Blade Runner is that the blog is wrapping up its “year” dedicated to AI in sci-fi, and Blade Runner presents a vision of General AI. There are several ways to look at and evaluate Replicants.
First, what are they?
If you haven’t seen the film, replicants are described as robots that have been evolved to be virtually identical from humans. Tyrell, the company that makes them, has a motto that brags that they are, “More human than human.” They look human. They act human. They feel. They bleed. They kiss. They kill. They grieve their dead. They are more agile and stronger than humans, and approach the intelligence of their engineers (so, you know, smart). (Oh, also there are animal replicants, too: A snake and an owl in the film are described as artificial.)
Most important to this discussion is that the opening crawl states very plainly that “Replicants were used Off-world as slave labor, in the hazardous exploration and colonization of other planets.” The four murderous replicants we meet in the film are rebels, having fled their off-world colony to come to earth in search of finding a way to cure themselves of their planned obsolescence.
Replicants as (Rossum) robots
The intro to Blade Runner explains that they were made to perform dangerous work in space. Let’s bypass the question of their sentience on hold a bit and just regard them as machines to do work for people. In this light, why were they designed to be so physically similar to humans? Humans evolved for a certain kind of life on a certain kind of planet, and outer space is certainly not that. While there is some benefit to replicant’s being able to easily use the same tools that humans do, real-world industry has had little problem building earthbound robots that are more fit to task. Round Roombas, boom-arm robots for factory floors, and large cuboid harvesting robots. The opening crawl indicates there was a time when replicants were allowed on earth, but after a bloody mutiny, having them on Earth was made illegal. So perhaps that human form made some sense when they were directly interacting with humans, but once they were meant to stay off-world, it was stupid design for Tyrell to leave them so human-like. They should have been redesigned with forms more suited to their work. The decision to make them human-like makes it easy for dangerous ones to infiltrate human society. We wouldn’t have had the Blade Runner problem if replicants were space Roombas. I have made the case that too-human technology in the real world is unethical to the humans involved, and it is no different here.
Their physical design is terrible. But it’s not just their physical design, they are an artificial intelligence, so we have to think through the design of that intelligence, too.
Replicants as AGI
Replicant intelligence is very much like ours. (The exception is that their emotional responses are—until the Rachel “experiment”—quite stinted for lack of having experience in the world.) But why? If their sole purpose is exploration and colonization of new planets why does that need human-like intelligence? The AGI question is: Why were they designed to be so intellectually similar to humans? They’re not alone in space. There are humans nearby supervising their activity and even occupying the places they have made habitable. So they wouldn’t need to solve problems like humans would in their absence. If they ran into a problem they could not handle, they could have been made to stop and ask their humans for solutions.
I’ve spoken before and I’ll probably speak again about overenginering artificial sentiences. A toaster should just have enough intelligence to be the best toaster it can be. Much more is not just a waste, it’s kind of cruel to the AI.
The general intelligence with which replicants were built was a terrible design decision. But by the time this movie happens, that ship has sailed.
Here we’re necessarily going to dispense with replicants as technology or interfaces, and discuss them as people.
Replicants as people
I trust that sci-fi fans have little problem with this assertion. Replicants are born and they die, display clear interiority, and have a sense of self, mortality, and injustice. The four renegade “skinjobs” in the film are aware of their oppression and work to do something about it. Replicants are a class of people treated separately by law, engineered by a corporation for slave labor and who are forbidden to come to a place where they might find a cure to their premature deaths. The film takes great pains to set them up as bad guys but this is Philip K. Dick via Ridley Scott and of course, things are more complicated than that.
Here I want to encourage you to go read Sarah Gailey’s 2017 read of Blade Runnerover on Tor.com. In short, she notes that the murder of Zhora was particularly abhorrent. Zhora’s crime was of being part of a slave class that had broken the law in immigrating to Earth. She had assimilated, gotten a job, and was neither hurting people nor finagling her way to bully her maker for some extra life. Despite her impending death, she was just…working. But when Deckard found her, he chased her and shot her in the back while she was running away. (Part of the joy of Gailey’s posts are the language, so even with my summary I still encourage you to go read it.)
Gailey is a focused (and Hugo-award-winning) writer where I tend to be exhaustive and verbose. So I’m going to add some stuff to their observation. It’s true, we don’t see Zhora committing any crime on screen, but early in the film as Deckard is being briefed on his assignment, Bryant explains that the replicants “jumped a shuttle off-world. They killed the crew and passengers.” Later Bryant clarifies that they slaughtered 23 people. It’s possible that Zhora was an unwitting bystander in all that, but I think that’s stretching credibility. Leon murders Holden. He and Roy terrorize Hannibal Chew just for the fun of it. They try their damndest to murder Deckard. We see Pris seduce, manipulate, and betray Sebastian. Zhora was “trained for an off-world kick [sic] murder squad.” I’d say the evidence was pretty strong that they were all capable and willing to commit desperate acts, including that 23-person slaughter. But despite all that I still don’t want to say Zhora was just a murderer who got what she deserved. Gailey is right. Deckard was not right to just shoot her in the back. It wasn’t self-defense. It wasn’t justice. It was a street murder.
Honestly I’m beginning to think that this film is about this moment.
The film doesn’t mention the slavery past the first few scenes. But it’s the defining circumstances to the entirety of their short lives just prior to when we meet them. Imagine learning that there was some secret enclave of Methuselahs who lived on average to be 1000 years. As you learn about them, you learn that we regular humans have been engineered for their purposes. You could live to be 1000, too, except they artificially shorten your lifespan to ensure control, to keep you desperate and productive. You learn that the painful process of aging is just a failsafe do you don’t get too uppity. You learn that every one of your hopes and dreams that you thought were yours was just an output of an engineering department, to ensure that you do what they need you to do, to provide resources for their lives. And when you fight your way to their enclave, you discover that every one of them seems to hate and resent you. They hunt you so their police department doesn’t feel embarrassed that you got in. That’s what the replicants are experiencing in Blade Runner. I hope that brings it home to you.
I don’t condone violence, but I understand where the fury and the anger of the replicants comes from. I understand their need to want to take action, to right the wrongs done to them. To fight, angrily, to end their oppression. But what do you do if it’s not one bad guy who needs to be subdued, but whole systems doing the oppressing? When there’s no convenient Death Star to explode and make everything suddenly better? What were they supposed to do when corporations, laws, institutions, and norms were all hell-bent on continuing their oppression? Just keep on keepin’ on? Those systems were the villains of the diegesis, though they don’t get named explicitly by the movie.
And obviously, that’s where it feels very connected to the Black Lives Matters movement and the George Floyd protests. Here is another class of people who have been wildly oppressed by systems of government, economics, education, and policing in this country—for centuries. And in this case, there is no 23-person shuttle that we need to hem and haw over.
In “The Weaponry of Whiteness, Entitlement, and Privilege” by Drs. Tammy E Smithers and Doug Franklin, the authors note that “Today, in 2020, African-Americans are sick and tired of not being able to live. African-Americans are weary of not being able to breathe, walk, or run. Black men in this country are brutalized, criminalized, demonized, and disproportionately penalized. Black women in this country are stigmatized, sexualized, and labeled as problematic, loud, angry, and unruly. Black men and women are being hunted down and shot like dogs. Black men and women are being killed with their face to the ground and a knee on their neck.”
We must fight and end systemic racism. Returning to Dr. Smithers and Dr. Franklin’s words we must talk with our children, talk with our friends, and talk with our legislators. I am talking to you.
If you can have empathy toward imaginary characters, then you sure as hell should have empathy toward other real-world people with real-world suffering.
