Following the murders of George Floyd, Breonna Taylor and countless others, many American cities have held a wave of protests denouncing state-sanctioned violence of Black Americans at the hands of police officers.

In the wake of protests, actors Griffin Newman and Stephanie Beatriz announced that they were donating $22,000 in bail funds from their residuals for portraying cops on television. Newman was the first to start, followed by Beatriz. Newman, who most recently starred in Amazon’s The Tick, says he guest-starred on Blue Bloods many years ago. Beatriz currently stars as a detective on the hit NBC series, Brooklyn Nine-Nine.

I’m an out-of-work actor who (improbably) played a detective on two episodes of BLUE BLOODS almost a decade ago.

If you currently play a cop?

If you make tens or hundreds of thousands of dollars a year in residuals from playing a cop?

I’ll let you do the math. pic.twitter.com/En4ww2OSjP

— Griffin Newman (@GriffLightning) June 2, 2020

I’m an actor who plays a detective on tv.

If you currently play a cop?

If you make tens or hundreds of thousands of dollars a year in residuals from playing a cop?

I’ll let you do the math. (Thanks @GriffLightning for leading the way). pic.twitter.com/Xxf3dU0urF

— Stephanie Beatriz (@iamstephbeatz) June 2, 2020

Both Newman and Beatriz called on their fellow actors to donate similar residuals they’ve made for portraying cops to bail funds as reparations for copaganda on television.

This January, Color Of Change released a report called Normalizing Injustice: The Dangerous Misrepresentations That Define Television’s Scripted Crime Genre. In the report, it found that police procedural shows such as Blue Bloods and Law & Order reinforce policies and attitudes about the criminal justice system that negatively impact people of color the most.

The report reveals that crime procedurals function as a “PR machine” for police departments and spread propaganda. The report also revealed that Black characters are portrayed less frequently as victims, even though they are the frequent victims of police brutality in real life.

READ MORE:

Is ‘Watchmen’ A Bold Critique On White Supremacy Or More ‘Copaganda’?

Photo: NBC

Color of Change