Forgive me. I’m going to break rank.

Instead of the book review you were expecting, I’m going to talk about a movie. A movie that derived from a book, yes, but it contains not a single sheet-waving, chain-dragging spectral presence.

But more than that, I’m going to climb onto a soapbox for a good old-fashioned rant. Creak. There, I’m settled.

The movie: The Hunger Games.

Who would have guessed that, in this century, in this country, myopic movie viewers would say of beautiful and charming Amandla Stenberg playing the gentle Rue, that she is a “black bitch” or that the two African American actors in key roles have “ruined” the movie or that because of racial diversity (and literal interpretation of the book) the Hunger Games is not worth seeing. And worse. Oh, far worse. Words I would not utter.

Check out this article from Jezebel.

I thought that as a nation we had turned a corner in our compassion and generosity and understanding.

I thought, naively, that with the election of Barack Obama we were not color-blind as some have suggested but color-kind—that we could smile indulgently at the “parent from Kenya, parent from Kansas” schmaltzy sound bite. So alluringly alliterative, yet indicative of the inclusiveness we hold dear.

I even thought that maybe now we could judge each other by the content of our character.

How was I so wrong?

I hear that some cars sport Nobama bumper stickers. And now a beautiful, sensitive child portraying a beautiful, sensitive child from another time has been vilified for the color of her skin.

Perhaps it’s time we put into action those words “created equal” that define us as a society. Those words, yes, those words from a document of another time. A little something we like to call the Constitution.