Is anybody else being reminded of A Time To Kill by all this shit? In more ways than one I mean.
Maybe I just haven't seen that movie in a long-ass time, but the more I think about it the more I think it actually examines a lot of the shit we're looking at right now, and I'm not even talking about the klansmen in the movie, or hell even Kevin Spacey's character. Again, I haven't seen that movie in years, but to my recollection McConaughey's character believes himself to be a post-racial white American (while saying he's in support of capital punishment). The movie spends most of its screentime contrasting him with classic southern-style racists. Then somewhere towards the end of the movie when he tells Jackson's character he considers them to be friends, Jackson's character gives him a speech about how they aren't really friends. He asks how many times McConaughey has been over to a barbecue at his house, or how well he actually knows the guy's family. And then Jackson spells out the reason he hired a white lawyer to defend him in the first place -- because he needed someone on his side white people would actually listen to. Then finally during the last day of the trial McConaughey has to end is closing statement with "Imagine if the victim was white," feeling terrible he even has to do this.
I dunno. That whole thing just sounds pretty profound in retrospect in terms of being a post-civil rights race movie. Maybe I just have a totally lapsed memory of the film.