The young black actor of "This Is Us" looks back on his experience of racism on and off the set ...
Dean Buscher / The CW
At the age of 12, Lonnie Chavis is already showing great maturity. The one who plays Randall as a young man in This Is Us, who faces racism and the difficulty of growing up in a white environment as an adopted black child, wrote a moving essay for People magazine. He details his own experience as a racialized child in Hollywood.
" My life matters, they say [ndlr: en référence au slogan #BlackLivesMatter] but is it true? " he starts. " America paints a very clear picture of how I should see myself. America shows me that my color is a threat, and I am treated as such. I only learned what it was to be black when I was 7 years old. "He explains then that at that time, his parents began to educate him on the issue through long discussions but also the viewing of films like Malcolm X and Amistad, which undoubtedly participated in his vocation of actor.
On film sets or at events, he tells of his disappointments: " I have already been treated very badly by security agents, making me feel that I had nothing to do there, until a press officer came to my rescue."He also says that he was often confused with other young black comedians, from Black-ish or Stranger Things." I imagine that when we are black we all look alike "he comments with irony and bitterness.
He also returns to a scene from This Is Us, which made him cry, where a grandmother is cruel to her character because of her skin color: " I was crying for myself. Can you imagine having to explain to a room full of whites that if you can't stop crying it's because of the pain that racism causes in you? I can. "
Beyond his job, he admits to having witnessed several scenes that marked him in his flesh, especially when a police officer twisted his father's arm in front of the family home. " At that precise moment, I was convinced that my parents were going to die. "
