Blindspotting: Black & White Identity

Blindspotting is my instantaneous pick for Best Original Screenplay. The dialogue in this movie captured me from the first scene to the last, and in one climactic moment, had me at the edge of my seat, as Daveed Diggs' rap burned itself into my psyche. Written by Diggs and his childhood friend Rafael Casal (who co-stars in the movie), this movie is a searing look at race relations, identity politics, and the perils of gentrification.

Diggs plays Collin, a man who is on the last three days of his parole and trying his level best to keep his head down and come out unscathed. Unfortunately, that plan goes awry when he witnesses a white Oakland police officer shoot a black man on the street. He drives off, afraid to say anything or do anything as no one will believe his word as a convicted felon, but that moment is the beginning of a series of mishaps that reveal to him exactly how much being a black man in Oakland has cost him. Casal plays his best friend Miles, a fellow Oakland man, born and raised, who is tatted up and prone to some foolishness. As the movie progresses, we see how he is able to get away with this behavior much more easily because he is white, while everyone automatically assume the quiet and rule-following Collin is the troublemaker.

That's the harsh premise of the film, but make no mistake - this is a hilarious movie that will make you burst out laughing at multiple moments. It is scripted and edited impeccably, with not a single wasted scene or line of dialogue. Everything is set in motion to deliver an epic payoff, and when you get to that climactic moment when Diggs raps about everything that has happened to him over the past three days and led to this heartbreaking point in time, time seems to stand still and you simply cannot take your eyes off the screen.

Director Carlos Lopez Estrada has crafted a masterpiece, with evocative set pieces (who knew a pimped out Uber could be the setting for so much hilarity?) and a flair for creating tactile scenes that make the audience feel like they are a part of this world. I know nothing about Oakland, but after this movie, I feel like I have understood where exactly people come from when they complain about gentrification and the manner in which the takeover of their neighborhoods slowly erases their existence from the world. And I was watching with my friend, Lynsey, who is from Northern California and confirmed this story certainly rang true.

Blindspotting offers up an interesting take on what it is like to be from Oakland, whether you are black or white. There is a telling exchange in the film where Diggs asks Casal why it's OK for him to use the n-word, but Casal would never use it himself. There's another moment when Casal is percevied to be a white hipster posing as a "brother," and this misrepresentation of his identity infuriates him. While this is emphatically a movie about Collin and how his blackness makes him a target in all social scenarios, it is also cleverly a movie about whiteness and how it leads to misperceptions of its own. Ultimately, when you find out why this movie is called what it is, it leads to a whole host of revelations that will shake you to your core and make you look at the world around you in a whole new light.