Looks like Sammy Davis Jr. is finally getting his place in the sun. On Wednesday, Variety announced that MGM will be producing a biopic about the Cuban-American triple threat. The prolific writer and actor Lena Waithe will be co-producing. The script will be based off of Davis Jr.’s daughter’s biography: “Sammy Davis Jr.: My Father”.

According to reports, the movie will take a close look at the legendary singer’s later life and his relationship with his daughter. It will also give us a peak into Davis Jr.’s younger days, showing us flashbacks from his time as a “child prodigy” to a “global superstar”.

It's about time Hollywood pays tribute to multi-talented Sammy Davis Jr. When I was a child growing up it was awe inspiring to see this black man on tv in tv shows acting and performing. As an adult I came to appreciate him more. Hope the biopic will do him justice.

— Lester Eady (@EadyLester) October 15, 2020

For those who are unfamiliar with Sammy Davis Jr., he was an immensely popular star of ’50s and ’60s. He was what some people would call the original “triple threat”–he could dance, sing, and act. And he did all three excellently.

Throughout his life, he would lie and say his Cuban-born mother, Elvera Sanchez, was of Puerto Rican descent. Later he admitted that he did this because he was afraid that the prevailing anti-Cuban sentiment in the wake of the Cuban missile crisis would have hurt his career.

I’ve always loved Sammy. He had it all, an amazing voice, a gifted dancer, he was a fantastic actor and by all accounts a truly great man. The racism he had to endure was criminal. I’m very happy to see he’s being honored with a biopic.

— Sarah Poorker (@SarahPoorker) October 15, 2020

But Sammy Davis Jr. was perhaps most known for being a member of the legendary “Rat Pack”–a powerful group of Hollywood hotshots that included Frank Sinatra, Dean Martin, Joey Bishop, and Peter Lawford. Their collective power and raucous Vegas stays made them living legends in their time.

But beneath the fortune and fame, Davis Jr. struggled with internal demons. He was of a victim of the brutal racism of the entertainment industry, as well as his unrelenting health and addiction problems. He eventually died in 1990 at the age of 64 due to cirrhosis.

We hope that the upcoming movie does Sammy Davis Jr.’s story justice! Here are the actors we would love to see fill the very talented shoes of the Afro-Cubano star.

Jharrel Jerome

Jharrel Jerome took the world by storm when he portrayed the wrongly accused Korey Wise in “When They See Us”. His performance was so moving that he won an Emmy for Outstanding Lead Actor in a Limited Series. We’d love to see this gifted Dominican performer try his hand at playing Sammy. It also doesn’t hurt that he has a music career too.

Miguel

Miguel captured our hearts long ago with his powerful but soothing vocals. We fell in love with him even more when the Mexican-American singer sang “Remember Me” at the 2018 Oscars. Plus, he’s acted before. So you know he’s no rookie.

Kid Cudi

You may know Kid Cudi mostly as a hip-hop artist, but this rapper of Mexican descent also has a successful acting career. We also know that he would be able to tap into the pain and struggle of Davis Jr’s inner turmoil.

Elijah Kelley

Elijah Kelley is an immensely multi-talented singer-actor who you may know from hits like “Hairspray” and “The Butler”. He isn’t Afro-Latino (which we would love to see), but he’s a phenomenal singer and dancer. And he even looks a bit like Sammy Davis Jr!

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On Monday, Twitter announced that it has suspended 15 Twitter accounts of “Black Trump supporters” that they discovered were fake. The accounts were similar in nature, tweeting out nearly identical messages, like “YES IM BLACK AND IM VOTING FOR TRUMP!!!” and “VOTE REPUBLICAN”. The accounts quickly amassed thousands of followers and retweets.

The fake “Black Trump Supporter” accounts were discovered by social media disinformation researcher Darren Linvill, who flagged the accounts and reported them to Twitter.

The accounts violate Twitter’s rule barring users from using the platform “in a manner intended to artificially amplify or suppress information or engage in behavior that manipulates or disrupts people’s experience.”

The Twitter accounts sourced their profile photos through internet image searches. One profile photo even included the search term “black man photo” at the top of the profile photo–proving that someone stole the photo from the internet and (sloppily) cropped it. Others were revealed, via reverse-image searching, to be generic stock photos of Black people.

This might be the funniest one out of all the "I AM A BLACK PERSON AND I AM A TRUMP SUPPORTER" cosplays. pic.twitter.com/m1UT7DqZA2

— Unapologetically Black Supremacist (@InsertPun_) October 12, 2020

The accounts seemed to follow a pattern: the Black Trump supporters were devout Christians, veterans, blue-collar workers, police officers…you get the picture. 

“They are impersonating Black Trump supporters, Black authoritative figures such as veterans and police officers, and various prominent individuals in order to gain rapid traction and virality,” said cybersecurity manager Lee Foster to The Washington Post.

Linvill says that the accounts don’t necessarily appear to be a coordinated campaign, although he did find traces of the Russian alphabet  in the accounts’ online records. Linvill hypothesizes that the accounts might have had monetary motives–they often tweeted out links to buy Trump merchandise. 

More astroturfed fake African-American pro-Trump accounts. Almost 10,000 retweets in three hours. pic.twitter.com/NE8ZRnnQLa

— Ben Collins (@oneunderscore__) October 11, 2020

Another theory is that, based on the timing, whoever created the fake accounts is trying to change what appears to be the persistent narrative that President Trump is racist. The accounts became much more active in recent months, around the time when Trump refused to condemn white supremacist groups on national TV. These “Black Trump supporters” make it seem like he actually has the support of Black Americans. 

But polls and surveys prove that Trump is highly unpopular among Black Americans. The Pew Research Center shows that 81% of Black voters support Biden in the upcoming election. 

These most recent fake Twitter accounts are one of the many ways that the Republican Party has been attempting to manipulate voters this election cycle. Along with spreading disinformation, the party has set up unsanctioned ballot drop-off boxes across California. The Governor of Texas, Rick Abbott (R) also made headlines recently for restricting the amount of official ballot boxes in Texas to only one per county–a move that critics slammed as a transparent attempt to suppress the Latino vote.

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