Integrity Vs. Conformity.

"Speak your mind, even if your voice shakes."

I'm a very big fan of Jessica Chastain. I remember when she was a promising-yet-unknown actress on one of my all-time favorite shows "Journeyman" many, many years ago before she blew up and became the star that she is now, even outshining the main cast of the series that introduced her to me. That being said, it's great to know that I'm not crazy and that I'm not the only one who sees the racial issues in this country for what they are. It's a glaring problem and far from subjective.

Standing up on that stage at the Critics' Choice Awards a couple of days ago with everything in the world to lose professionally and probably personally as well, both in present and going forward, took more courage than I've seen from pretty much any other white actor, actress, writer, director, or producer in Hollywood and that's a shame because we're all apart of the human family and we all struggle at the end of the day so when one of us struggles, our entire society does through it's failure to correct it's issues by extension.

Knowing the way this country works though, I wouldn't be shocked if her industry gives her the "nigger-lover" treatment after this and snubs her more often than she already has been - that being if she even continues to find work at all - but I applaud her for doing what she did because it needed to be done. It's appreciated by me at least.

See, it's easy to jump on a cheap bandwagon and make Cosby jokes to immense applause when it's the hot thing to do the way that pathetic Tina Fey and her sidekick Amy Poehler did at the most recent Golden Globes but it takes a certain amount of integrity and class like that of Jessica Chastain's to call out a system which keeps people from making Stephen Collins jokes in the same token.