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American Violet: the Norma Rae of the Obama generation

Nicole Beharie as Dee Roberts in American Violet

One day while driving in Boston he heard an NPR report that shook him to his core. It was about a judicial system in Texas that allowed citizens to be rounded up based on the testimony of just one person. One district attorney was literally imprisoning most of the African Americans in his district and coercing them to agree to a plea bargain relinquishing their right to a fair trial. The result: not just a criminal record, but a back door system of disenfranchisement.

 

This American tragedy in Texas seemed out of a turn of the century playbook, take a group of poor, powerless people, and ensure they continue to be poor and powerless and afraid or respectful if you will of the powers that be. But one woman stood up, and her courage with the support of the ACLU was a story that a talented writer like Haney had to tell. The result: American Violet opening this week in select cities, an American parable of the best and the worst of our people and our way of life.

 

Based on true events in the midst of the 2000 election, American Violet tells the story of Dee Roberts, played with just the right nuance and grace by the newcomer Nicole Beharie, a 24 year-old African American single mother of four young girls living in a small Texas town who is barely making ends meet on a waitress’ salary and government subsidies. With the framing backdrop of the 2000 presidential debacle, the story takes us inside this woman’s experience as she is arrested, imprisoned, pressured to take a plea then challenged to take a stand.

 

Her moral clarity is striking as she chooses at each turn to take the risk to do the right thing. The story is told with the same moral clarity and doesn’t insult the viewer with overly simplistic characters thanks to the elegant directing of Tim Disney. Each character from the ruthless father of her daughters played by Xzibit to the local district attorney played by Michael O’Keefe, appear on the screen as real people with real layers and motivations acting in a morally compromised way. Alfre Woodard is heartbreaking as the mother only wishing that her daughter put this whole episode behind her. Charles Dutton provides the spiritual center of the story as the local preacher demanding better from and for his flock.

 

 In a conversation with Bill Haney he described his passion for this compelling story. “I absolutely want to move people to act. To spend six years to make this film has to be something important to me and this story is in two ways. First I am angry that the life of this one woman and her experience in our criminal justice system is both specific and a metaphor for the experience of hundreds of thousands of American families destroyed by the ill conceived war on drugs. That it is being done with my tax dollars and in my name as a citizen angers me. Second I’m inspired by the extraordinary example of the young mother who found the courage and character in herself to do something extraordinary for her family and her community. She contributed to changing the laws in Texas and in society for all of us. I’m not interested in making movies about superheroes but ordinary Americans finding it in themselves to do extraordinary things.”

 

The heart of any social movement is the one individual taking that one step, the first move to say enough is enough. American Violet is an important movie; it is an important story and one that deserves support. Don’t just tell you friends and neighbors take them to see this film. Make sure every child in your neighborhood sees this film. Like Norma Rae, American Violet is a story and film for the ages.