In the daily tsunami of news, talk shows and blogs on current events, it is rare that the issue of race and racism ever gets a hearing without reticence, apology or hostility. For example, even as some tout the arrival of the so-called “post-racial” America, this week’s government report about increased recruitment by racist extremist groups was shouted down by right-wing talking heads.


So, for me, it is amazing to even see the film “American Violet,” which is based in part on the true story of how a wide swath of the Black community in a Texas town was arrested one day in a massive drug raid in 1999. I admit it, before the first frames roll, I give a film like this some props for just being, and I also give it a bit of a pass if it is not big-budget polished.


But with “American Violet,” no such pass is needed. Director Tim Disney and producer-writer Bill Haney hold the story, production values and action in a close embrace from beginning to end. A story about big issues is distilled into a compelling narrative about one young Black mother who finds herself in the crosshairs and entanglement of the justice system. At the same time, the nation is in thick of the November 2000 presidential race (and would find itself in another cross-hairs of the justice system!)


The film focuses on a young, single mother named Dee Roberts. One day, when Roberts is at work at a restaurant, where she works as a waitress, she is arrested on what she assumes is a charge for unpaid parking tickets. When she arrives at the local jail, however, she sees many of her neighbors and realizes that nearly the entire population of the public housing project where she lives, Arlington Springs, has been arrested and jailed. All are facing assorted drug charges and are being urged by the court-appointed attorneys to accept a plea bargain so they can be released.


Knowing that she is innocent but against the counsel of her mother, (Alfre Woodard), Dee refuses to accept the plea and is kept from her three young daughters. Eventually with the aid of the ACLU, she files a lawsuit against the powerful district attorney and sets in motion a series of events that challenges the status quo in the town.


All of the complexities of Dee’s story—her family life, her struggle to find new employment after being falsely charged as a criminal, her relationship with the rather dubious father of her two youngest children (played by the rapper Xzibit)—are artfully wrapped into the screenplay. We are carried quickly through a series of scenes that are not cliché. Last but not least, newcomer Nicole Beharie makes a stunning debut in the role of Dee Roberts. She brings the right combination of youth, rebellion and steely strength that suits the portrayal of a woman who had her first child at the age of 13. There is also a steely, raw quality to “American Violet” that is well-suited to the story it tells, which is unsparing—and true.


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