Melonie Diaz On The George Zimmerman Verdict

Melonie Diaz, who stars in Fruitvale Station with Michael B. Jordan and Octavia Spencer, sees parallels between the film, which tells the true story of 22-year-old Oscar Grant who was killed at the hands of police officer on New Year's Day 2009, and the recent George Zimmerman verdict in the shooting of Trayvon Martin.

Diaz gave her thoughts on the situation to Uinterview in an exclusive U Rant video. “I think it says that there’s an obvious issue with our judicial system, and I think it goes further back it’s like you want to talk about Emmett Till you know wanna talk about Rodney King,” says Diaz. “I think, I think there’s a problem with how we choose to judge each other and the issue of like racial profiling you know a couple weeks ago Forest Whittaker was in a store and somebody thought he was stealing something I think there’s a lot of kind of hatred and unkindness in the ways we choose to think about it each other.”

So what does she think this says about the state of our society? “There’s a theme and I’m not sure if it’s the that way we choose to raise our children or it’s the people we’re choosing to be our jurors. I don’t have the answer to that but I’m obviously incredibly furious about it.”