A Hollywood union tried to promote diversity. Then things got complicated

On a Wednesday afternoon nine days after the murder of George Floyd, Brittny Chapman sat down in front of her iPad camera in her East Hollywood apartment and pressed record.

With round, gold-rimmed glasses framing her face and a black T-shirt blazoned with "Black Women Welcomed," the 36-year-old costumer chastised her union's muted response to the worldwide protests following Floyd's death in 2020.

Studios such as Netflix and Walt Disney had pledged financial support for Black lives and social justice. Chapman's Motion Picture Costumers Local 705, which represents thousands of Hollywood costume workers, had shared tweets by parent union IATSE expressing solidarity with African Americans but otherwise was quiet, she complained.

In an Instagram video viewed thousands of times, she said:

"I don't think y'all get what I face every day when I'm on set and that's alarming to me. Instead of standing with me, maybe figure out ways that y'all can show up for all of us, maybe start creating programs where you're reaching out to our community to be a part of our unions because I'm just going to say, I would really like to see more of us behind the camera."

Within two weeks, Chapman was recruited to help lead a new diversity committee for Local 705. The committee set lofty goals and recruited diversity consultants.

But just four months later, she and the three co-chairs of color of the committee resigned in protest, questioning the union's sincerity to achieve diversity.

The story of what happened when costumers tried to instigate reform is a tale of the frustrations