Straight Outta Answers..Full of Questions

Y’all, it’s a great time of the year, it’s awards season!

This year I am pumped about awards season, because like my sister stated in her blog, “None of these are ‘movies about nothing.'”

I know we could get into a #OscarssoWhite Convo, but this is not the time. Let’s celebrate a well written story.

I’m not a huge movie goer, but I am so pyshced about Straight Outta Compton being nominated for Best Original Screenplay. Cheers to you Jonathan Herman and Andrea Berloff, you killed it.

I was so connected as soon as this movie started, mostly because they filmed the opening scene of Straight Outta Compton on the block I lived in South Central, LA…so let’s just say it hit a little too close to home and reminded me of “the kevins.”

Also, lines in the movie like, “speak a little truth and people loose their mind,” and “if you had a chance to change your situation, would you take it?” resonated with my work and challenged me to open up a real conversation with my students about the movie.

Both in my current job working with at risk youth and jobs I had in LA, I got to know families, worked/lived in communities, and saw 1st hand some of the things you see in the movie.

This is not me saying I know where N.W.A. is coming from, I don’t. I have ZERO clue. **White, social, social worker is the byline of this whole blog** I do, on the other hand, recognize that this story being out there and being recognized by the screen actors guild is important for so many reasons!

I encourage you to watch this movie and think about some things that I am going to challenge my students to talk about in a movie group I run-

• how women are treated in the dope house in one of the 1st scenes of the movie
• how Ice Cubes parents tried to defend him outside of his house when the cops had him hand-cuffed
• how Dre fought for his brother because it felt like no one else was
• how N.W.A. glorified sex, substance usage and themselves
• how anger is handled by all people differently throughout the movie

These points I have pulled out affect all different types of people. The question is, when our youth(or even you) see this movie, are they seeing a story they connect to, recognize and want to change the cycle of some of the very real problems displayed through this film or are they making idols out of people who didn’t all end up happy, successful, or even alive?

I think there are people who come from the same background as me(privileged) who “get down” with this lifestyle just as much as the youth I work with today. So, honestly, this movie left me straight outta answers and full of questions…but that is what makes it such a great, thought provoking story.

My thought is let’s open up the conversation and be willing, ready and educated enough to have respectful and change-invoking dialogue. Thanks for the story Jonathan and Andrea…you have made my work as a white, woman social worker that much more exciting.