It Will Take So Much More Than Boycotting Their Stores

Photo by Nathan Dumlao on Unsplash

I grew up in a household where very little was censored. Particularly with regards to movies, tv shows and music. My parents and my stepfather all made it very obvious about the world we lived in from very early on. That is why I was able to watch movies like Menace to Society and Don’t Be a Menace before I was 10 years old. Menace To Society follows a young Black boy growing up in the 80’s and early 90’s South Central LA. He is the child of a gangster and is drawn into that same lifestyle. It is a tragic drama for the most part with an amazing soundtrack and profound lessons about identity, race, poverty and community. Don’t Be A Menace, a Wayans Bros project that came out just a few short years later was a comedy that played up the plots of Menace, Boys In the Hood and a few other Black movies at that time. Shout out to the 90’s for so many amazing films. In both Menace To Society and Don’t Be A Menace, there is a scene of what happens when the Black male characters enter an Asian convenience store. Menace actually opens up that way with that infamous saying by an Asian woman character, “Hurry up and buy”. The Black characters Cain and O-Dog enter into an argument that turns into a robbery and murder. In Don’t Be A Menace, that same “Hurry up and buy” scene becomes a comedy with an added scene of a white man coming in the place , being assisted in the robbery of the store…