Last night, I watched one of the old "Carrie" movies with my daughters. I noticed immediately and pointed out to my daughters that, although there were many African-American walk-on actors in the background of the movie, none of the Blacks actually said anything at all. There were many African-Americans, but they were cast neither as friends of Carrie nor as friends of Carrie’s tormentors, not as teachers, parents, police or medical personnel. They were nothing, literally seen but not heard!
I abandoned the Carrie movie to do some writing, but half an hour later my oldest daughter shouted to me, "Daddy, a Black man spoke!"
"What did he say?", I asked my daughter.
"He said, ‘Let’s go!’", my daughter informed me.
Hmmm. A ninety minute movie set in an "integrated" high school, with just two words spoken by all of the Black faces combined! "Let’s go!"
I told my daughters, "I’ll bet that Black actor had wanted to say, ‘Let’s go, man’, but the director told him there was a quota for Black speech and he was only allowed two words: 'Let’s go!’"