The delicate issues of racism and bigotry in the Texas legal system are the focus of the new culturally-relevant and eye-opening film American Violet. An independent film not likely to generate the gigantic boxoffice-topping results of some of the major blockbusters right around the corner, it is an ever-important, poignant story of the often-overlooked and dismissed struggle of minorities in the heartland. It is grim and shocking, with the most surprising element being how sadly current the actual story is.

Upon first glance it seems like yet another tragic tale of the injustices suffered by African Americans in the days before integration, civil rights, and Martin Luther King, Jr. I for one thought I was watching a depiction of pre-1960s Texas. However, the actual events upon which this film is based occurred during the disturbingly recent 2000 presidential election. The story is of a young African American single mother, named Dee Roberts in the movie, struggling to raise her four children on a waitress' salary in the impoverished housing projects of small-town Texas.

One morning while Dee is at work, the local District Attorney, Calvin Beckett, executes a military-style drug raid in Dee's neighborhood, arresting several of Dee's friends and neighbors. Although she is not present for the raid, the police come to her workplace and haul her away in handcuffs, offering up no explanation and no description of the charges brought against her. It is not until the next day, after one hellish night in a women's correctional facility, that Dee learns that she is accused of being a drug dealer and selling drugs in a school zone.

Shocked and appalled by the accusations, Dee further learns that the entire raid, including her arrest, was based upon the word of a single, uncorroborated police informant facing drug charges of his own. Given that, according to the law, this evidence alone would be enough to convict her, she is offered an impossible plea bargain: plead guilty and go home to her family, yet remain a convicted felon... or fight the charges and risk a prison sentence of fifteen to twenty-five years. Despite the urgings of her mother and the risk to her family, Dee refuses to take the deal. Refusing to go quietly and standing upon the principle that the truth will set her free, Dee decides to risk everything and fight the charges.

Her plight does not go unnoticed. Her story, and the stories of others so similar to hers, draw the attention of ACLU attorney David Cohen, who travels to Texas to join the fight against injustice. Enlisting the help of local attorney and former narcotics officer Sam Conroy, David joins Dee in her fight against the unfair charges and seemingly impossible odds. Together they encounter unimaginable hostility and outright bigotry. Dee's world begins to crumble around her as she loses jobs, friends, and comes very close to even losing custody of her children, the very ones she is doing everything she can to protect.

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