Brow Beat

Shameik Moore on the Significance of Dope in the Wake of Trayvon Martin and Michael Brown

Check out all Slate’s interviews from the 2015 Sundance Film Festival.

In Rick Famuyiwa’s Dope, high schooler Malcolm (Shameik Moore) struggles with reconciling being a nerd while living in the rough neighborhood of Inglewood, California. One of the most impassioned moments of the film comes towards the end, when Malcolm reads aloud his college essay for Harvard—a scene that resonates in a particularly timely manner in the wake of Trayvon Martin and Michael Brown.

All this week, Brow Beat is doing interviews from the Sundance Film Festival, and we asked Moore about how Dope fits into the current conversation on race in America.

Interview booked by Raquel Bruno. Executive produced by Ayana Morali.