British-Nigerian actor David Oyelowo has issued an apology after his comments on Black British and Black Americans competing for movie roles sparked backlash online.
Last month, comedian Druski posted a skit titled “British Actors Are Taking All the Roles,” which appeared to spoof 2013 film 12 Years a Slave starring English actor Chiwetel Ejiofor as a commentary on Black British actors portraying American characters. Oyelowo, who portrayed Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. in 2014 biopic Selma, was asked about the skit while he was a guest on the podcast One54.
On the podcast, Oyelowo pushed for solidarity among actors spanning the Black diaspora and said that Druski’s skit wasn’t “helpful.” “We are way better and way more powerful together than we are apart. I truly think so much of that mindset is born out of insecurity,” the actor said.
But what truly sparked the backlash was the way Oyelowo described southern Black accents. "If you take the Nigerian accent like this and you slow it down, you put a lot of slavery in there, and then you start to put a little bit of subservience in it, this is what starts to happen to the Nigerian accent, man," he said.
Clearly the actor became aware of the backlash, and released a lengthy apology on social media.
“I want to apologize unreservedly to all those who were rightly offended by my comments on the One54 Africa podcast regarding Southern Accents. It was the wrong thing to say and it is not how I feel,” Oyelowo wrote.
The actor continued by saying that he has “deep respect and great love for Black people of all kinds, especially those from the American South.”
“Reducing a dialect born from the richness and resilience of Black Southern culture to anything less was careless and wrong,” he continued.
Oyelowo concluded by expressing a care for uplifting his “Black brothers and sisters from all places” in his performances and public opinions. “Please forgive my failure to do that in this instance,” he wrote.
Druski’s skit garnered a more lighthearted reaction from a British actor, F1 star Damson Idris, who joked, “you ain’t shit” on Instagram.
