Actor Justice Smith has come out as
queer.
The 24-year-old Smith – who appears
in the films Jurassic World: Fallen Kingdom and Detective
Pikachu – posted his announcement on Instagram.
Smith bundled video from a Black Lives
Matter protest he attended on Friday in New Orleans and photos of
himself and his boyfriend, actor Nicholas Ashe. In one photo, the men
share a kiss.
“@nckash and I protested today in New
Orleans,” Smith wrote.
“We chanted ‘Black Trans Lives
Matter’ ‘Black Queer Lives Matter’ ‘All Black Lives Matter.’
As a Black queer man myself, I was disappointed to see certain people
eager to say Black Lives Matter, but hold their tongue when
Trans/Queer was added. I want to reiterate this sentiment. If your
revolution does not include Black Queer voices, it is anti-Black. If
your revolution is OK with letting Black trans people like
#TonyMcDade slip through the cracks in order to solely liberate Black
cishet men, it is anti-Black,” he said, referring to Tony McDade, a
38-year-old black transgender man who was fatally shot last month by
an officer of the Tallahassee Police Department. McDade was a suspect
in a fatal stabbing.
“You are trying to push yourself
through the door of a system designed against you, and then shut the
door behind you. It is in our conditioning to get as close to
whiteness, straightness, maleness as we can because that’s where
the power is. And if we appeal to it, maybe it’ll give us a slice.
But the revolution is not about appeal. It is about demanding what
should have been given to us from the beginning. What should have
been given to black, queer, and trans individuals from the beginning.
Which is the right to exist. To live and prosper in public. Without
fear of persecution or threat of violence,” he said.
Ashe plays Micah West on the Oprah
Winfrey Network drama Queen Sugar.