I was very excited when I got an advanced screening to Denzel Washington’s new movie, The Equalizer 2. The Equalizer 2 is about Robert McCall (Denzel Washington), who is a vigilante that gets justice for people who can’t fight back. For the most part, I thought it was a great action film. Lots of fight scenes, Denzel successfully defeating multiple attackers at once, multiple references to famous black authors — it was all going good until the character Miles was introduced.

Miles (played by Ashton Sanders from Moonlight), is a young black kid who lives in Robert McCall’s apartment complex. We learn that his brother was shot and killed. When their apartment complex is vandalized, Robert McCall starts to paint over the graffiti, when Miles offers to help. We then learn that Miles is a great artist and takes over the painting job for Robert McCall.

From Robert’s window, he sees that Miles has stopped painting and went off with a bunch of men into a car. Once Miles doesn’t return, Robert looks for Miles and finds him in a rundown apartment building in a room full of other black men with guns and half-naked women cooking drugs in the kitchen. One of the “thugs” gives Miles a gun and tells him to kill the person who murdered his brother. Robert pulls Miles out of the building safely and long story short, Miles no longer seeks retaliation.

It was at this point in the movie that I quickly realized that a black person did not write this script. I felt that Miles’ character existed in stereotypical depictions of black life. His brother had to die from gun violence. He had to seek retaliation through more gun violence and it had to be a group of other black men encouraging him to kill. These men also had to be in a space where drugs were being produced, in what looked like the projects. Then, if that wasn’t enough, the n-word was dropped a bunch of times during that scene, and it’s always cringe-worthy when someone white thinks it is OK to use that word in any context, even if written for black actors.

This association between black people and violence is the kind of lifestyle that many associate with black people. They see these types of depictions in rap videos and the news, and assume that all black people live this way.

The rest of the movie was still enjoyable, despite that one scene. I even thought that The Equalizer 2 was better than the first one. But as soon as the movie was over, I went onto IMDB to find out who wrote the script — and it was written by Richard Wenk, a white man.  Although this movie was directed by a black man and there were lead black actors, Hollywood still needs stronger diversity in the writing rooms. We need more black screenwriters who will depict us in more diverse and inclusive ways.