The young black actor of "This Is Us" looks back on his experience of racism on and off the set ...
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. "