I sat in class for two semesters and listened to the man who wrote Colors talk about writing Colors.  To date I have never watched the film in its entirety.  But one hood tale that did spark my interest was Dangerous Minds.  Dangerous Minds had a lot of commonalities with Colors.  They were both filmed in Los Angeles California.  Both had black/brown hoodlums, violence and Hip-Hop soundtracks.  But there was one thing that didn’t quite sit right about the film.  One missing element it needed for me to truly buy into this visceral reality.  It wasn’t honest.  One scene embedded itself in my brain, the infamous knife scene.  Michelle Pfeiffer’s character an ex-military teacher had to show these unreachable kids that she was “down”.  Let them know she had a certain skill set.  Let it be known that she could 187 a motherfucker if need be.  One super slow knife trick later…she was in?  Yes, a teenaged John called bullshit on that one.  As would be the case years later when The Blind Side swept through the country like a big old American ball of Christian feel good.  I had noted a tried and true formula in Hollywood film at a young age.  You take one part selfless white person, sprinkle in ignorant black folk and blend…you get box office gold.  Or in Blind Side’s case…a gold statue.