Quentin Tarantino: “Finally, the issue of white supremacy is being talked about”

In New York magazine’s new interview with Quentin Tarantino, the film director best known for Pulp Fiction says he’s excited that America is finally confronting institutional racism.

When asked how his upcoming movie, The Hateful Eight, deals with race, Tarantino responds:

Finally, the issue of white supremacy is being talked about and dealt with. And it’s what the movie’s about…

It was already in the script [before the Ferguson and Baltimore protests]. It was already in the footage we shot. It just happens to be timely right now. We’re not trying to make it timely. It is timely. I love the fact that people are talking and dealing with the institutional racism that has existed in this country and been ignored. I feel like it’s another ‘60s moment, where the people themselves had to expose how ugly they were before things could change. I’m hopeful that that’s happening now.

Tarantino’s excitement seems to be directed at the growing movement against racial disparities in the criminal justice system and police use of force. Over the past couple of years, this movement really has tried to bring the issues with institutional racism to the mainstream.

So far, the push appears to be working. A recent Gallup poll found, for example, that fewer Americans of all races are satisfied with how black people are treated in US society — and a growing number of Americans said black people are treated less fairly in police interactions, malls, work, shops, and restaurants, bars, theaters, and other entertainment places. And Democratic presidential candidates can no longer avoid questions about what they’re going to do to address these issues.

So Tarantino is right that this issue is certainly getting more attention. Whether that will lead to significant policy changes remains to be seen.