"‘American Crime’ Creator John Ridley: How Trayvon and Ferguson Inspired TV’s Most Provocative Show"

"So many things have happened since August 2013 that have made this show even more current and vital.

Well, that was the odd thing. We started our conversations about the show after Trayvon Martin, since it seemed very much of the now. But there was a moment after Trayvon where it felt like a lot of energy had expended. Production started and, very sadly, Ferguson happened. You realize that you’re not moving beyond things and are always going to be chasing something. Even though this is a fictional story, there was a responsibility to capture the emotional honesty of what’s going on. So we reexamined the story and the imagery that we used. There’s no dividing this from what’s going on in real life. None of us want to exploit what’s happening in real life, but we also can’t operate in a fantasy universe that doesn’t have problems with race, class, and perception.
How did the saga of Trayvon Martin inform American Crime?
For ABC, their desire was: Why do these things keep happening? Why do we galvanize around these crimes and take a certain interest? When you get to the end of it, there will never be a resolution with Trayvon Martin and Ferguson that is commiserate with what happened. I don’t want to get on a soapbox, but beyond Trayvon Martin, I wanted to create something that could play at any time. When I was a much younger man in New York at NYU, the Central Park Five case went down, and we were sold al these things—evidence, confessions, this young woman had survived this horrific thing, and couldn’t even testify but her presence alone was enough to sway emotions. And then to find out years later that they had nothing to do with it? It was all about perception."
http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2015/03/05/american-crime-creator-john-ridley-how-trayvon-and-ferguson-inspired-tv-s-most-provocative-show.html

In case you are also trying to figure out what this show is. The rest of the interview is about criminal justice and perceptions generally, and racial diversity in media. If you're interested, it's worth reading; if you aren't, it's not so brilliant or new that it needs to be read.