Entertainment

The Colorism of Race: Bill Duke

Published

11 years ago

April 21, 2015

Oakland Post

Bill Duke

by Mary L. Datcher
Special to the NNPA from The Chicago Defender

Bill Duke is one of America’s most prolific actors and directors as he continues to capture the topics that challenge people to think consciously on social issues. His latest project, Light Girls, is a documentary film and book as a follow-up to his Dark Girls film based on the serious problem of skin color discrimination within certain ethnic cultures — specifically the African American community.

Having a distinguished and long career that has brought him from his hometown of Poughkeepsie, New York to studying drama at Boston University and continuing further instruction at New York University’s Tisch School of the Arts and the American Film Institute, Duke launched his professional career on Broadway. Among some of his more notable roles were the imposing, conscious character Abdullah Mohammed Akbar in the movie Car Wash, as well prominent roles in Menace II Society, Exit Wounds, X Men: The Last Stand and Get Rich or Die Tryin‘. But it is his talents as a director that continue to keep him on speed dial with many production companies and film studios.

Duke is considered one of the most sought-after directors to capture and bring stories to life regardless of race, gender or cultural definitions; he is the actor’s director and the director’s director. His directorial work has spanned from the critically acclaimed television series Hill Street Blues and Miami Vice to feature films such as A Rage in Harlem, Hoodlum, Deep Cover, and Sister Act 2: Back in the Habit along with the PBS broadcast documentary Prince Among Slaves.

Duke was in Chicago to showcase his films Light Girls and Dark Girls along with participating in very in-depth panel discussions about the topics during the Black Women’s Expo last month.

CD: What was the motivation behind doing the films Light Girls and Dark Girls? It has been something that has been a taboo topic in the African American community. What made you feel it was necessary to tell this story?

BD: Based on my own experience as a young man coming up in Poughkeepsie, NY being dark complexioned and being tall, it was difficult. Luckily I had parents that re-enforced my worth to me. Early on, it was not easy for my sister, my mother and my niece. Some of the things they and other young girls went through from the community. Also, seeing the ‘colorism’ in our community today, it said to me, ‘This needs to be given a voice.’ As a result, I put together the two films and a book.

CD: Are you looking to do a third film as a follow up to Light Girls and Dark Girls?

BD: I’ve exhausted this territory. The next film is going to be called What is a Man? Is there a distinction between being born male and becoming a man? Many people feel there isn’t a distinction; you’re born male so you’re a man. In African tradition, that was not true. At 12 or 16 years old, you were given a spear and sent into the jungle. If you came back, there was a male ceremony with all other men who accepted you into the tribe. There’s a distinction between having a child, fathering a child and providing for that child. We want to examine that phenomenon. Is there such a thing called ‘manhood’? Are there manhood responsibilities? What are those responsibilities? Have they changed? Have they evolved? Also, what is the impact on those children of men that have several women who have borne their children?

CD: What motivates you to give back and mentor young people?

BD: It’s not our obligation, it’s our responsibility as Black men. The suffering of our young men due to lack of exposure to values and opportunities. The solution to that problem can’t be placed upon the shoulders of a system that has ignored them for many years.

We’re playing checkers in a chess game. Society is chess. We’re waiting for the chess players to come and teach us how to play chess. Those of us who learn how to play chess have to teach other people how to play chess. You can’t compete if you don’t have the information, knowledge and techniques for competition. So, it turns into complaints, violence and frustration. It’s a little frustrating and disturbing.

CD: Do young actors and filmmakers of color need to know how to play chess in order to compete and survive in Hollywood?

If you come to Hollywood and you are dreaming of having aspirations without understanding what is called ‘show business,’ you may get very, very lucky. That’s not what I see; I see the majority Black, Hispanic and Asians coming to Hollywood end up in positions that never lead them to their career. It’s an extremely competitive, rejection business. People hide the pain of rejection by dealing with the symptom which is usually through drugs, alcohol, partying or other activities that don’t deal with the root of the problem. Right now, the kids I see coming to Hollywood have no clue. They think we’re in the film and television business. We’re in the ‘media business.’

Duke immediately returns to the Windy City to begin filming, “Blaxicans” from mid-April to the end of May.

“It’s about a Mexican family and Black family where the young Black man falls in love with the Mexican girl. They get married and have a baby and she’s a “Blaxican.” The problem is that the father of the Black family hates Mexicans and the father of the Mexican family hates Black people. It’s a conflict between those two cultures while the wife, child and husband love each other and love their families. It’s how they resolve these issues; it’s a dramedy.”

It was just recently announced that Duke would be working on the biopic of the gospel legend Mahalia Jackson and filming in Chicago. Currently, the director is in discussions with potential investors to bring the gospel singer’s celebrated life to the big screen.

Duke reveals his admiration, “Not only was she close friends with Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., but she encouraged him to do the “I Have a Dream” speech at the march. She was one of the first brilliant Black business women in this country. Although, it was a male dominated culture and society, she let no man tell her what to do. She stood up for women’s rights and her rights. Her story should be celebrated. It’s not a Black story. It’s a story of a woman — a human being — that grew up in the rural South with nothing. She believed in God enough that her faith brought her through circumstances that the average person could not survive. You can feel through her music.”

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Business

From Historic Memories to New Possibilities: Oakland Celebrates Coliseum 60

More than 75 people gathered at Youth UpRising in East Oakland on Friday, September 18, for Coliseum 60, an event marking six decades of sports, entertainment, employment, and community memories at the Oakland-Alameda County Coliseum Complex. Held 60 years to the day after the Coliseum first opened, the celebration featured cultural performances and a mini-documentary highlighting its history. Speakers reflected on the venue’s significant role in the community and its future possibilities. Read more to learn about the individuals and stories honored during this special event.

Published

3 days ago

September 27, 2026

Post News Group

Quixote Atkins of VillageGIVE moderates a panel discussion at the Coliseum 60 celebration at Youth UpRising featuring Keith Brown, a member of IATSE Local 107; author, historian and former Black Panther Party member Tareka Lewis; and African American Sports and Entertainment Group President Ray Bobbitt.

By Carla Thomas

More than 75 people gathered at Youth UpRising in East Oakland on Friday, Sept. 18, for Coliseum 60, a celebration honoring six decades of sports, entertainment, employment and community memories connected to the Oakland-Alameda County Coliseum Complex.

Held 60 years to the day after the Coliseum opened, the event carried the theme, “One Community. One Legacy. One Future. Forward Together.”

The celebration opened with the national anthem performed by sisters Anese Jade, Amina Benjamin and Zaza Benjamin. Diamano Coura West African Dance Company contributed African dance and drumming, bringing movement, rhythm and cultural expression to the program.

A mini documentary highlighted the Coliseum’s sports history and its broader role as an entertainment destination. Archival material recalled performances by Prince and Tina Turner, along with memorable games featuring the Warriors, Oakland A’s and Raiders.

“The Coliseum 60 is about much more than celebrating a building or looking back at 60 years of history,” said event organizer Quixote Atkins of VillageGIVE.

“It’s about the people who made that history possible: the families, workers, athletes, artists, community leaders, fans and generations who gathered there and created memories together.”

A panel exploring that history featured author, historian and former Black Panther Party member Tareka Lewis; stagehand and union representative Keith Brown; and Ray Bobbitt, president of the African American Sports and Entertainment Group AASEG. Lewis described her family as fourth-generation Bay Area pioneers.

“My family and Black families who arrived even earlier helped build the Bay Area, grew businesses and established culture here,” Lewis said. “This should be taught in the public schools.”

Lewis recalled Oakland’s influence on sports, music and literature, from the Raiders’ beginnings at Laney College to stars such as The Pointer Sisters and Rickey Henderson who attended Oakland public schools. She also advocated for school museums, historical timelines, entrepreneurship training and investments benefiting corridors such as Bancroft Avenue and High Street.

Keith Brown, a member of Local 107 of the International Alliance of Theater and Stage Employees (IATSE) who began working at the Coliseum in 2011, remembered the Ringling Bros. and Barnum & Bailey Circus, the Ice Capades, baseball bat giveaways and Nelson Mandela’s 1990 appearance.

“The special events are amazing, but it’s the workers that make the memories real for everyone,” Brown said. “They make the magic happen at the Coliseum.”

The program recognized longtime workers, including beer-stand manager Robert Preston, who served for 40 years, and Kenyatta Gentry, who worked as a vendor for 24 years and used her earnings to purchase her first apartment. Union workers Jose Gonzales and Carmen Sandoval were also honored. Speakers emphasized that Coliseum employment provided generations of residents with union wages and benefits.

Dr. Denise Saddler, the superintendent of the Oakland Unified School District (OUSD) was also honored. Saddler shared her family’s history of working at the Coliseum.

District 7 Oakland City Councilmember Ken Houston discussed the complex ownership arrangements involving the city, county and private interests.

“This was the most complex deal of its kind in the country,” Houston said.

Prior to moving from the East Coast, Alameda County Supervisor and Coliseum Joint Powers Authority Chair Nate Miley recalled learning about Oakland through its three professional sports teams. As an elected official and public servant, Miley fought hard to keep the Golden State Warriors, Oakland As, and the Raiders, but he is hopeful for the future.

“The story is not over for the Coliseum,” Miley said. “We’re entering a new chapter.”

Bobbitt said the departure of three teams had once seemed unimaginable, but he maintained that Oakland’s future remains bright.

“Oakland is a cultural superpower worldwide,” Bobbitt said. “We’re going to write the future where we participate and drive the redevelopment.”

Bobbitt highlighted AASEG’s four-year partnership with Castlemont High School’s architecture program, which engages students in reimagining and creating redevelopment concepts for the Coliseum property. “The youth will always move us forward. They are the future.”

In closing, Atkins said, “September 18 is the celebration, but what we build together afterward is the legacy.”

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Oakland Post: Week of September 23 – 29, 2026

The printed Weekly Edition of the Oakland Post: Week of September 23 – 29, 2026

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3 days ago

September 27, 2026

Oakland Post

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Books

BOOK REVIEW: ‘Laws of Solomon’ Reveals Tender Heart of Former Child Soldier

The monsters that came to him early in his sleep were the easy ones. It was the later demons that stole Solomon Nangobi’s sleep, the spirits of all the people he killed when he was a child soldier in Uganda, and when he was a fixer in New York as an adult. Their ghosts called to him with urgent voices, though he left that life behind long ago.

Published

1 week ago

September 22, 2026

Post News Group

Book cover of “Laws of Solomon.” Courtesy of Poisoned Pen Press

By Terri Schlichenmeyer, The Bookworm Sez

Author: Eriq La Salle, Copyright: c.2026, Publisher: Poisoned Pen Press, SRP: $18.99, Page Count: 304 pages

Finally, after so much work, you’ve left your past behind.

That’s what you tell yourself: what’s done is done and you can’t undo history. It’s over. You try not to think about last month, last year, a decade back because what does it matter? As in the new novel, “Laws of Solomon” by Eriq La Salle, remembering is too full of pain.

Now, his days were filled working the soil in gardens near Malibu, and he loved the quiet life.

Still, he kept his guns.

And he was glad: when Solomon recognized two Zeta gunmen stalking a well-dressed man, woman, and child through the gardens, he couldn’t walk away. He stopped the gangsters with bullets, but not before the adults and their bodyguards were dead. The child, an 8-year-old boy named Gaby, was safe, but Gaby couldn’t tell Solomon what was going on.

What became quickly certain, however, was that Solomon was now Gaby’s guardian, and the Zeta crime boss wanted them dead, too.

When he was the same age as Gaby, Solomon saw unspeakable things, the murder of his parents, the destruction of his homeland, and the atrocities that Uganda dictator Idi Amin’s soldiers committed. He learned to kill, he observed, and he was hardened, understanding as a small boy that revenge was often necessary and needed, and that blood would shed at those times.

But Gaby was pure, an innocent, a child.

Solomon reached out to his contacts to try to get the boy to safety, but being a contact of a marked man was likewise a dangerous thing: the monsters outside were worse than the ones inside him.

Two words for you: ‘Whoo weee.’ That’s what you’re going to say when you close the back cover of “Laws of Solomon,” knowing that you’ve just been taken on a wild up-and-down, around-and-round ride.

La Salle makes it impossible not to like Solomon, an African man who has, over time, lost nearly everything dear to him and who has no faith in much of anything. Readers get that part of the story eventually, and there’s historical authenticity in some of it, but we never really get to know Solomon, which makes the book feel dark and dangerous. Along the way, we meet and get to know his helpers, which buoys Solomon’s chase to find safety for the boy, and your heart won’t stop pounding.

Keep in mind that this is a thriller partially set in 1970s Uganda, so expect lots of violence but don’t expect a lot of people to live. If you’re up for that, find “Laws of Solomon.” You won’t be able to leave it behind.