Juneteenth 2020: From Pandemic to Protests Dashboard Dashboard

On Friday, June 19 from 2 p.m.–3:30 p.m., join writer-director Ali LeRoi (Survivor’s Remorse, Everybody Hates Chris) as he moderates a timely and candid virtual panel discussion with fellow writers, community leaders, and activists about race and racism in America. “Juneteenth 2020: From Pandemic to Protests” panelists will include Melody Cooper (The Insiders, Two Sentence Horror Stories), Berwick Mahdi Davenport (CEO, Soul Focused Group), Charles Murray (writer-producer), Janine Sherman Barrois (showrunner-EP, Self Made, Claws), and Rashad Robinson (president, Color Of Change).

In January of this year, Color Of Change released “Normalizing Injustice: The Dangerous Misrepresentations That Define Television’s Scripted Crime Genre: A Comprehensive Study of How Television’s Most Popular Genre Excludes Writers of Color, Miseducates People about the Criminal Justice System and Makes Racial Injustice Acceptable." Drawing on data across 353 episodes, 26 scripted series, and multiple networks and platforms, researchers analyzed race and gender dynamics within storylines and major characters, as well as among creators, showrunners, and staff writers.

The report examines how crime-focused series reflect reality in their representations of racial disparities, causal connections, and equitable behavior in the US criminal justice system. The data illustrates how decades of misrepresentation has led to the normalization of common misconceptions in and among policing in America.

“What this report really roots us in is, how do you get Trumpism? You get that by miseducating a public and normalizing injustice—making things that are untrue seem true,” Robinson told Variety in January.

“Juneteenth 2020: From Pandemic to Protests” is presented by the WGAW’s Inclusion and Equity Group and the Committee of Black Writers. Please register to attend.