Michael B. Jordan, Danny Glover, and Omar from “The Wire” Star in this Haunting Police Brutality Protest Video

“Black is not a weapon.”


Big names including Michael B. Jordan (Creed, Fruitvale Station), Danny Glover, and Michael K. Williams (The Wire, Boardwalk Empire) are the stars of “Against the Wall,” a new video PSA from singer/social activist Harry Belafonte that highlights the issue of racial bias in police shootings of black men and women. We see each of the stars in turn, their hands pressed against a wall (or a rug made to look like one), looking into the camera with faces that reflect sadness and frustration. The audio consists of police radio and 911 calls—you’ll recognize snippets from the Trayvon Martin, Philando Castile, and Terence Crutcher cases—spliced with news reports and demands for justice (notably, from Anderson Cooper and the viral YouTube video of Nakia Jones, an Ohio cop). Also featured: former Obama adviser and CNN regular Van Jones, Sophia Dawson, Marc Lamont Hill, Sydney G. James, and rapper Mysonne.

The PSA opens with Jordan and an audio clip from 89-year-old Belafonte, whose social justice organization, Sankofa, partnered with directors Gerard Bush and Christopher Renz to create the video. “You cannot just go about, if it’s once or twice you can say it’s an accident or a coincidence, but when you have as large a population of murdered young men in the streets of America and they’re all black or of African American descent, I think there is somebody sending us a message,” Belafonte says. “And we should respond to that message.”

The PSA ends with a shot of Williams, best known for his portrayal of Omar on The Wire, lying on the ground, presumably injured. His eyes close, the screen fades to black, and the takeaway message appears: “BLACK IS NOT A WEAPON.”

WE CAME UP SHORT.

We just wrapped up a shorter-than-normal, urgent-as-ever fundraising drive and we came up about $45,000 short of our $300,000 goal.

That means we're going to have upwards of $350,000, maybe more, to raise in online donations between now and June 30, when our fiscal year ends and we have to get to break-even. And even though there's zero cushion to miss the mark, we won't be all that in your face about our fundraising again until June.

So we urgently need this specific ask, what you're reading right now, to start bringing in more donations than it ever has. The reality, for these next few months and next few years, is that we have to start finding ways to grow our online supporter base in a big way—and we're optimistic we can keep making real headway by being real with you about this.

Because the bottom line: Corporations and powerful people with deep pockets will never sustain the type of journalism Mother Jones exists to do. The only investors who won’t let independent, investigative journalism down are the people who actually care about its future—you.

And we hope you might consider pitching in before moving on to whatever it is you're about to do next. We really need to see if we'll be able to raise more with this real estate on a daily basis than we have been, so we're hoping to see a promising start.

payment methods

WE CAME UP SHORT.

We just wrapped up a shorter-than-normal, urgent-as-ever fundraising drive and we came up about $45,000 short of our $300,000 goal.

That means we're going to have upwards of $350,000, maybe more, to raise in online donations between now and June 30, when our fiscal year ends and we have to get to break-even. And even though there's zero cushion to miss the mark, we won't be all that in your face about our fundraising again until June.

So we urgently need this specific ask, what you're reading right now, to start bringing in more donations than it ever has. The reality, for these next few months and next few years, is that we have to start finding ways to grow our online supporter base in a big way—and we're optimistic we can keep making real headway by being real with you about this.

Because the bottom line: Corporations and powerful people with deep pockets will never sustain the type of journalism Mother Jones exists to do. The only investors who won’t let independent, investigative journalism down are the people who actually care about its future—you.

And we hope you might consider pitching in before moving on to whatever it is you're about to do next. We really need to see if we'll be able to raise more with this real estate on a daily basis than we have been, so we're hoping to see a promising start.

payment methods

We Recommend

Latest

Sign up for our free newsletter

Subscribe to the Mother Jones Daily to have our top stories delivered directly to your inbox.

Get our award-winning magazine

Save big on a full year of investigations, ideas, and insights.

Subscribe

Support our journalism

Help Mother Jones' reporters dig deep with a tax-deductible donation.

Donate