"If I wasn't black, that wouldn't have happened to me; I've thought that so many times I've lost count," says Michael B Jordan, star of Fruitvale Station. "A woman holds on to her purse as she walks by, or people cross the street when they see me, to being pulled over by the cops for no reason. I've been illegally searched. I've been harassed. Have I been in situations where people who don't know me have treated me like less than a person? Yes I have."
One of Hollywood's brightest new acting prospects, calling from the set of blockbuster The Fantastic Four, recounts such incidents of pernicious racism as if they're obvious, inevitable. But Jordan, resting in his trailer after a morning playing the Human Torch, talks matter-of-factly. "It's just what comes with being black," Jordan says, "and it happens most of the time."
Michael Bakari Jordan (his middle name is Swahili for "noble promise"), 27, grew up in New Jersey, the son of a teacher and a caterer. He started acting and modelling early, as well as learning to tap-dance, and his first break was in a Toys R Us advert. Despite being an obsessive basketball player, he made his name with the NBC American football series Friday Night Lights. You'll probably know him from The Wire as Wallace, the project pawn in Avon Barksdale's drug cartel, the one with the wide cornrows, wider eyes and all-too-obvious conscience."I'm always hearing, 'Where's Wallace, String? Where's Wallace?'" he says, laughing. "That's usually the first thing people say to me."
But being young, black and American can also cost you your life, as his new film shows with brutal precision. Fruitvale Station, Jordan's first lead role, is directed by Ryan Coogler, a 28-year-old debutante straight out of film school, and shot in a clean cinéma vérité style for less than $1m. It's based on a true story, retelling the final day of Oscar Grant, a 22-year-old black man from the San Francisco Bay area who, in the small hours of New Year's Day 2009, got caught up in a fight on a packed-out train, before being shot by a policeman in the chaotic aftermath. Footage taken by a fellow passenger went viral, sparking riots across the city. Coogler grew up in the same neighbourhood, is the son of a community organiser and probation officer, works as a counsellor in a juvenile prison, and has made his point in interviews time and again: "Homicide through gun violence is the leading cause of death among young African-American males in the United States."
"I was living in LA, broke as hell and getting ready to go back home to New Jersey when I saw Oscar Grant's murder on Facebook," Jordan says. "I remember watching it again and again, feeling more and more angry. Oscar Grant is two weeks older than me. We both grew up in inner cities, in similar situations. Watching that footage, you think: 'That could have been me.'"
The film opens with that same footage. It shows Grant trying to plead his innocence as he is cuffed and held face-down on the platform. Then, one of the officers unholsters his handgun and shoots Grant in the back. Grant died the next morning. The officer who fired the shot testified that in a panic he mistook the gun for his taser. He was found guilty of involuntary manslaughter and walked free after 11 months. "Do I feel any sympathy for the police that night, in that heightened situation on Fruitvale Station?" Jordan asks. "No, none. They can say what they want, but a handgun is very different to a taser."
Fruitvale was released in America just as George Zimmerman, the neighbourhood watch volunteer who killed the unarmed Trayvon Martin, was cleared of murder."It seems to be happening again and again; young men from minorities slain by authorities that are supposed to serve and protect," Jordan says, his voice an even cool."That is a fact. You do the math. All I want to know is why."
As the ensuing smear campaign made clear – and as the film is careful to recognise – Grant was an ex-con with a dangerous temper who sold drugs between jobs. What wasn't widely reported was the fact he died on his mother's birthday, and had spent the early evening with his infant daughter, girlfriend, mother, grandma and extended family, eating gumbo and birthday cake.
Jordan's performance in Fruitvale Station has been likened to a young Denzel Washington. The mainstream has called with lighter roles – his turn as the Human Torch is buttressed by supporting roles in That Awkward Moment, a romcom with Zac Efron, and with Dane DeHaan in Chronicle, a film about teenagers with superpowers. Fruitvale, though, shows Jordan's ability to communicate the essence of a complex, uncertain young man through a mosaic of tiny details. He can hold a scene just by straining the cords on his neck, or shrugging someone off with a loose, evasive smile.
Jordan is keen to talk up the film's documentary basis. Coogler reconstructed Oscar's last day from trial records and court transcripts, while an attorney representing Grant's family provided access to witnesses on the train and passers-by who shared time with Oscar on his last day. The interactions we see, Jordan says, verifiably happened. Yet the film has had to weather claims it omits and distorts the facts of the case to create a martyr of Grant. A review in the New York Post read: "Given the vanishingly small likelihood that an established criminal's promise to go straight at any given moment should be taken seriously, the film doesn't push the idea of incipient redemption too much. It does, however, nudge us into making Grant more lovable with completely made-up scenes, such as one in which he cares for a dog hit by a car."
Variety, meanwhile, said: "Even if every word of Coogler's account of the last day in Grant's life held up under close scrutiny, the film would still ring false in its relentlessly positive portrayal of its subject."
Jordan admits the pitbull scene was invented. "But art is there for interpretation," he says. "African-Americans are considered in the United States as like pitbulls. We are looked at as vicious and intimidating human beings. So when that pitbull gets left for dead in the street, it foreshadows what's going to happen to Oscar. If people want to misconstrue that as being manipulative, then they might be in the wrong industry. But you got to ask whether they know what the fuck they are talking about."
If the audience are being worked on here, then it's more subtle than the press might care to admit. The first time we meet Jordan's Grant, he's lighting up a joint and hiding his stash as his girlfriend harangues him for cheating on her; hardly a corrective for the stereotype of black youth. But then, in almost the same moment, Grant is scooping up his infant daughter and holding his family close, before texting his mum happy birthday. In that one scene, Coogler and Jordan show us what we expect to see, then flip the image to subvert that expectation.
What, I ask, is Jordan's message to the film's critics? For the first time, his voice rises a little. "What's so unrealistic and manipulative about a black man loving his daughter, and having real, emotional moments with his family?" he says, the words firing out. "Why do people make these accusations? Is it because African-Americans aren't allowed to be real people? Is it because we're not allowed to be human and have human interactions with our family? Is that not allowed? Is it being manipulative to show those moments on screen?
"Would you rather see us with a gun in our hand and a bandana on our face, acting like thugs? Because here, you ain't going to get that get. You're going to get questions instead."
Fruitvale Station is in UK cinemas now.
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