I like the television show American Gods, but recently one of my favorite characters, Anansi - played by Orlando Jones - was announced to be cut from the show. Not only am I disappointed for story reasons but I am saddened that they did Mr Jones dirty. While publicly stating that he was let go because the new show runner wants to go in a different direction, Orlando Jones heard that they now think that his character sent the wrong message to African Americans inspiring anger because the systematic and historical racism. Recently Orlando Jone posted a video describing his point of view.
The way I read this is that the people who run the show thinks that the character scares white people at best and offend trump supporters at worst. Following is a great clip from season 2 that shows the kind of rhetoric that was coming from Anansi. To be honest, its the kind of speech the powerful in society should hear. And I can see why it would scare some people.
I think Orlando Jones is correct. We literally live in a world where a speech like the clip above is considered to be more decisive than Donald Trump's antics. Let that sink in.
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