Idris Elba kind of nails it on race discussion
Idris Elba kind of nails it on race discussion
Idris Elba may well be one of the best actors working in film and television today. When he was first cast as Heimdall in the MCU’s Thor, I was skeptical, in part because I didn’t know his work at the time.
Since then, I’d sign off on him playing me. I’m quite sure he could play me better than I’ve been playing me, after all.
But there are tons of actors whose work I enjoy but who say some colossally stupid things.
So imagine my joy when my wife sent me this piece about Elba:
Idris Elba is tired of being put in a box. The actor, who is returning as his iconic detective Luther in Netflix’s upcoming movie “Luther: The Fallen Son,” recently told Esquire UK that he has stopped calling himself “a Black actor” after it became a constrictive label on his career.
“Of course, I’m a member of the Black community,” Elba said. “You say a prominent one. But when I go to America, I’m a prominent member of the British community. ‘Oh, U.K.’s in the house!’ If we spent half the time not talking about the differences but the similarities between us, the entire planet would have a shift in the way we deal with each other.”
“As humans, we are obsessed with race,” Elba continued. “And that obsession can really hinder people’s aspirations, hinder people’s growth. Racism should be a topic for discussion, sure. Racism is very real. But from my perspective, it’s only as powerful as you allow it to be. I stopped describing myself as a Black actor when I realized it put me in a box. We’ve got to grow. We’ve got to. Our skin is no more than that: it’s just skin. Rant over.”
A-freaking-men.
Look, I’m sympathetic to the fact that black people in the United States got a bum deal for centuries, and that’s phrasing things mildly. I can even recognize that despite the efforts of the Civil Rights Movement, they haven’t been able to catch up with the rest of society in many ways.
But we’re not going to make anything better by pretending that white and black are two different categories.
Idris Elba is an amazing actor. Not an amazing black actor, which implies he’s just really good for a black dude, but an amazing actor.
The same can be said of Denzel Washington—an all-time favorite of mine—or Halle Berry, who is a favorite for several (obvious) reasons.
They’re just amazing actors. Lumping them as being black suggests somehow that they don’t deserve to be in the conversation of best actors as a whole, which is absolute nonsense.
And it’s not just actors where we see this. Anything where we see excellence as a virtue will often include some mention of black people as if they’re a separate category, as if they need that subset in order to stand out.
Where we don’t see that is in fields like sports where often black athletes outnumber white ones. There’s not a desire to differentiate them there, and saying someone is a good white athlete is likely to be construed as racist.
Elba says he thinks being described as a black actor held him back. I don’t know if that’s true or not, but I do think it’s an unfair categorization for a man who could play pretty much any role he wants and nail it.
(Yes, I still want him to play James Bond, actually.)
Look, we’re never going to get past race if that’s all everyone wants to talk about. I’m thrilled to see Elba is done with that discussion.
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