Selma

I saw this film today sitting next to a large black woman. She was, and still is, a stranger to me.
Occasionally throughout the film, I tried to assess her reaction. From what I could tell, she was less emotional than I was. Admittedly, I have grown increasingly maudlin since I became a father, but still. Shouldn’t blacks get all upset and emotional when watching a film like this? Or are they too used to portrayals of injustice, not to mention actual injustice, to bother?
Leaving the cinema, I found myself wishing I myself had some slight injustice, nothing major, to suffer and fight for. Kind of like when I was young and wished I would get hurt really bad so people would feel sorry for me. I know this sounds amazingly ungrateful, but us uninteresting, middle-aged, heterosexual white guys could use something to unite us. As things are now, we just cruise through life, lonely in our splendid individualism, not even realizing how damn good we have it.
Until we see films like Selma.
Great film, by the way. See it.