Lethal Weapon star Danny Glover spoke about his experiences with discrimination and the need for tolerance in the communication industry at the inauguration of Emerson College’s new Center for Diversity in the Communication Industry at the Cutler Majestic Theater Tuesday night.
Glover said there is a disproportionately small number of minority producers and actors in film and television today, citing studies by the NAACP and the Screen Actor’s Guild that revealed that approximately 80 percent of television shows are produced by white males.
“Discussion about diversity is often more about quotas and not about changing notions of diversity,” Glover said.
In a press conference before the show, Glover said the images he saw on television and in the news as a child often inaccurately portray their subjects.
“I grew up in an extraordinarily important moment in the world’s history,” he said, “and I am fortunate enough to realize its impact.”
Glover did say, however, that diversity in the communication industry has improved despite misconceptions about race relations in America and added that Americans are much less hopeful than they were 40 years ago.
He also said 63 percent of Americans think race relations will always be a problem in the United States, according to the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People.
Glover was a Goodwill Ambassador to the United Nations and has received numerous awards from the NAACP for his work on education in the African-American community. In the past two months, Glover has traveled to New Zealand, Tanzania and Switzerland to promote cultural sensitivity and diversity in the communication industry.
“We’re artists, and as artists we have to challenge the status quo,” he said.
Glover’s lecture was the first in the Balfour Distinguished Speaker series which will be hosted annually by the Center for Diversity in the Communication Industries.
William Smith, who was appointed the center’s executive director this month, said the new program will invite prominent artists and professionals to Emerson’s campus in an effort to create a more diverse and culturally aware group of communication leaders.
The center was partially funded by a $500,000 grant awarded in 2002 by the Boston-based Lloyd G. Balfour foundation. Emerson President Jacqueline Liebergott introduced the program before Glover spoke, saying its main goal is to expand multicultural understanding.
“Your mission is very exciting,” Glover told the estimated 900 in attendance who greeted the actor with a standing ovation. “You have the opportunity to make an impact nationally and even globally.”
When asked about long-time friend Mel Gibson’s controversial movie The Passion of the Christ, Glover said Gibson is “definitely not anti-Semitic and definitely not a racist,” even though Glover admitted he had not yet seen the movie.
Lindsay Scharf, an Emerson junior and Media Management major who attended the event, said that Glover’s message was nothing new, but still an important one.
“It is important to bring messages about diversity like these to the campus,” she said.
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