The New Yorker Radio Hour

John Ridley has been active in in film and television since the nineteen-nineties; he also has seven novels under his belt, as well as a play and several graphic novels. And, since the release of “12 Years a Slave,” for which he wrote the screenplay, Ridley has emerged as one of Hollywood’s strongest voices on issues of race. This year he came out with the series “Guerrilla,” a fictional account of a couple in the black-power movement of the nineteen-seventies; and “Let It Fall,” a documentary about the Rodney King verdict and the years of tension leading up to it. Yet, despite the recent resurgence of some of the most glaring examples of racism in America, Ridley tells David Remnick that he’s committed to a view that the nation can change for the better, and that to be honest about racism need not lead to despair: “I absolutely want to work on things right now where the hope is not so aspirational—it is there, it is underscored a little bit more.” Plus, hostility toward identity politics—nurtured by Steve Ba