by Candice Frank

I often hear my peers say: “It’s 2012, race doesn’t matter to people anymore.” Controversy about the recently released movie The Hunger Games says otherwise.

     The excitement for the release of The Hunger Games swept the nation in the past few weeks. The Hunger Games, a New York Times Best Seller by Suzanne Collins, was finally going to reach the big screen on March 23rd. I myself went with my friends to see the midnight premiere and loved it. I did not read the books, so I was interested in hearing the reviews of those who had done so. I was thoroughly disappointed to see some of the reviews of the fans.

      The Huffington Post reported: “Though the characters of Rue and Thresh were described in Suzanne Collins’ book as having “dark brown skin,” some viewers objected to the film casting black actors and tweeted complaints such as: “Awkward moment when Rue is some black girl and not the innocent blonde girl you picture,” and “Kk call me racist but when i found out rue was black her death wasn’t as sad #ihatemyself.” Other tweets stated that they would not support the movie once they found out that two of the characters were black.

  • • • 

     Actress Amandla Stenberg, 13 (black and Danish heritage), plays the character ‘Rue’, and actor Dayo Okeniyi, 24 (Nigerian), plays the role of  ‘Thresh’. I follow Stenberg  on twitter and once I heard about the racist fans, I tweeted words of encouragement for her. I told her to ignore the negativity and complimented her on her performance in The Hunger Games and her phenomenal acting in Colombiana. I may never know if she read these, but I know I expressed myself in a positive way.

     Nothing in the negative tweets criticized the quality of the black actors’ performances or tried to justify how the color of their skin would hinder the performance. Are their performances automatically deemed inadequate because of the color of their skin? I am appalled at the audacity of these tweeters, but glad that it is another eye-opening situation for Americans to realize that race still and will always matter.

The fact that racism is not as blatant anymore has many people in denial.

     However, I and other minority students are forced to think about race everyday. Our abilities are overlooked and, like actors Stenberg and Okeniyi, we are constantly judged by our skin color.

     So yes: in 2012 people are still unwilling to look past race and look at the bigger picture. Therefore, it is important that institutions like Newhouse have committees like the Diversity Committee that push to educate people about diversity and have an appreciation for it instead of unnecessary neglect.

#embracediversity