Racism is one of the main social issues in the United States which manifests itself in widespread unrest such as the LA riots after the acquittal of the officers responsible for savagely beating...Show moreRacism is one of the main social issues in the United States which manifests itself in widespread unrest such as the LA riots after the acquittal of the officers responsible for savagely beating Rodney King in the late 1990s and the emergence of the Black Lives Matter movement in the mid 2010s in the United States. Over the course of the last few decades Hollywood has increased its frequency of producing movies which are set in times of slavery. The degree of (relative) agency of the black protagonists in a selection of these movies (Amistad, 12 Years a Slave and The Birth of a Nation (2016)) becomes a method to criticise the persistence of racial injustice in the United States .Show less