Shoot the Messenger

Shoot the Messenger ... as an urban school teacher to a class of poor black adolescents. Determined to bring salvation to his students from the damage of poverty and crime with all his educational ‘know how’, he enforces a strict class regime with tough penalties of detentions and extra curricular work, particularly for those refusing to bow to his teaching methods. The most reluctant student is Germal (played by Charles Mnene) who backstabs Joseph as an over zealous middle-class sham whose demeanour is more ‘white’ than black. In his own vendetta Germal falsely accuses him of assault, a move that whips up huge backing from the black community when news breaks out, forcing Joseph’s public humiliation of being sacked and asked to leave the school as a branded criminal. Joseph’s induced psychological trauma sees him decline into solitude madness where he ends up treated in a mental asylum, and upon his release becomes destitute and homeless with a persistent hatred against blacks, which he then starts afflicting on others in the real world.