In sad news, Chadwick Boseman, who played the iconic character of baseball legend Jackie Robinson in the movie ’42’ has passed away at the age of 43.
Most recently, he was revered for his role in the blockbuster hit Black Panther. His representatives confirmed the news of his passing on social media. Boseman died from Colon cancer and it was first diagnosed in 2016, but he never notified anybody and continued working in Hollywood.
— Chadwick Boseman (@chadwickboseman) August 29, 2020
“A true fighter, Chadwick persevered through it all, and brought you many of the films you have come to love so much,” his family said in the statement. “From Marshall to Da 5 Bloods, August Wilson’s Ma Rainey’s Black Bottom and several more- all were filmed during and between countless surgeries and chemotherapy. It was the honor of his career to bring King T’Challa to life in Black Panther.”
Boseman broke many barriers throughout his film career. He also became the first black actor to get his standalone superhero movie.
He was a vocal supporter of NFL players who kneeled in order to protest the brutal police killings. Amongst all the things, he was also a vocal critic of President Trump’s anti-POC rhetoric. He labelled the athletes who kneeled during the national anthem with their firsts-up as ‘Patriots’.
“America is always being born out of being revolutionary,” said Chadwick Boseman about Colin Kaepernick and other players that took the knee. “That’s what it’s born out of. It’s not born out of doing what people told you what you’re supposed to do.”
“Kaepernick was saying was that America should live up to what its creed is. That’s it. Until it does that, until black men are not brutalized in the street and treated unfairly, I’m going to acknowledge that it’s not doing that,” Chadwick Boseman said in 2017. “That is still an acknowledgement of the flag, an acknowledgement of what the United States is. And until people sort of get out of the way and allow that to be expressed, people need to know what patriotism is.” (H/T-AP)
With the recent killings of George Floyd and Jacob Blake, the protests have erupted across America and now the country has to address the intersection of race and law enforcement.
Why people should watch 42 as a tribute to Chadwick Boseman
Chadwick Boseman isn’t unknown to playing revolutionary roles in movies. He played the role of Jackie Robinson, the iconic baseball players who broke the colour barrier to become the first black man to play in the Major League Baseball.
Robinson took his first base for Brooklyn Dodgers on April 15, 1947.
Jackie Robinson, over a 10-year major league career, had a lifetime batting average of .311. He appeared in six All-Star Games and six World Series with the Dodgers. He was elected to the Baseball Hall of Fame in 1962.
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Jackie Robinson died in 1972 at the young age of 53. His legacy is the inspiration he gives to athletes and people of all colors. His pathbreaking entry into the major leagues, seven years before the US Supreme Court’s ruling on Brown vs. Board of Education, stands as a brilliant symbol of America’s struggle with racism and the hope of racial harmony. (H/T – la84.org)
“I know that I am a black man in a white world. . . I know that I never had it made.” — Jackie Robinson said in 1947.
Exactly 73-years later things are no different in America. People today are still not comfortable talking about the racial injustice that is prevalent and the prejudice that POC have to endure every day. The latest killings of unarmed black male and nationwide protests across cities like Kenosha, Atlanta, New York, Los Angeles are the symbol of struggles faced by people every day.
Chadwick Boseman had to deal with his own set of racist experiences growing up in the south.
“Going to high school, I’d see Confederate flags on trucks,” Boseman said. “I know what it’s like to be a kid at an ice-cream shop when some little white kid calls you ‘n****r’, but your parents tell you to calm down because they know it could blow up. We even had trucks try to run us off the road.”
He also revealed the incident while he was in Atlanta filming for “Captain America: Civil War”. He drove for two hours to see his family members but saw KKK members holding rallies in a Walmart parking lot,
“So it’s like we’re going forwards and backwards at the same time,” Chadwick Boseman said. “People don’t want to experience change, they just want to wake up and it’s different. But that — shooting ‘Civil War’ as Black Panther and then driving past the Klan — that’s what change feels like.”
Stephen A. Wilson defined racism perfectly. It’s Real, It’s Complicated and It’s Real Complicated.
“Racism diminishes, demoralizes, and dehumanizes us all. It is part of the multifactorial etiology of health inequity and health disparity, usually working below the surface and affecting us in surprising and unexpected ways. The form of racism that slithers quietly below the surface decreasing our ability to love our neighbors as ourselves can be referred to as implicit social cognition, or implicit bias,” Wilson said. (H/T – STFM journal)
While racial tensions are at an all-time high, let’s take a moment to appreciate how good of an actor Chadwick Boseman was and watch the movie ’42’ featuring the iconic personality that broke barriers for coloured people to participate in MLB. That would be a fitting tribute to the actor.
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