Black Lives: Doom . Choosing between good and bad in black US neighbourhoods

Can skin colour dictate a black person’s future? Some say their skin speaks before their words and blame racial prejudice for having no chance in life. Others prove that regardless of skin colour, your “current situation doesn’t have to be your final destination.” 

Link between skin color and job opportunities
Shariff Griffin was imprisoned at the age of 16. He learned to be a barber behind bars and “transferred the street energy to barbering”. Shariff says he now makes the same amount of money as he did when selling drugs.

This episode of Black Lives focuses on the stories of black men from troubled neighbourhoods, who managed to turn their lives around: Shariff Griffin, a barber, learned his craft in jail by cutting hair for cigarettes, but these days he’s earning a living and not planning to return to the old habits that landed him in prison; Crazy Ted, an ex-gang member, chose to start over after miraculously avoiding jail time, and postman Dayne Black, who never even considered breaking the law for a quick buck after witnessing his stepfather steal money for another fix. 

Link between black skin color and job opportunities
"I wanna be able to wake up and like ‘Yes, I got to go to work!’” Todd Finch enters the job market.

Black lives: the Doom episode provides an honest portrayal of life in deprived areas where crime is rife, and asks whether its residents are predestined to exist amid poverty, crime and drugs.



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