Our struggle is but a journey.
A defense for allowing each other to tell our stories without shame.
A while ago, I was having dinner with some friends. Good energy. Intellectual discussion. You know the vibes.
The conversation turned to the film & television industry and someone exclaimed, “It’s time to put a moratorium on slave movies. Enough is enough!”
I should say that this person is a dope, progressive, talented, and thoughtful human being, but something about this bumped me so I pushed back. The conversation got deep and it became clear that they were simply expressing their belief in amplifying balance in how underrepresented groups are portrayed, and I fully agree. The Black & Brown experience is largely seen in media through struggle. But, I did make a counterpoint by saying, “I didn’t learn the truth about slavery in school. I learned it when I saw Roots.”
The “no more struggle stories” sentiment is nothing new. I even share a sense of solidarity with those who are exhausted by constantly being exposed to our pain. I just take issue with the broadness of the statement.
The truth is there are some images that are too traumatic for me to consume, specifically those centering around police brutality. Ever since the news played footage of Philando Castile’s murder on a loop for weeks on end, I haven’t had the stomach to watch any footage of Black & Brown people being killed, beaten, or even arrested. These types of images have an immediate and visceral affect on my mental, emotional, and in some ways, physical health.
I imagine it’s the same for people who call for the end of struggle stories in film and television. Certain things are too much for people so, if you‘re among those saying enough is enough, believe me, I feel you...
…but, be careful what you wish for.
The Great Awakening
Despite the reaction I have towards images of police brutality, they have led to an unprecedented awareness of problems underrepresented people have been trying to illuminate for centuries. The conversations we’re having around the abolition or reform of law enforcement and the pressure for politicians to address these issues is something I haven’t seen in my lifetime.
So, yes, I can’t stand to see Black bodies get killed by police in media, but that doesn’t mean the cameras should stop rolling. That doesn’t mean news outlets should ignore, or worse, suppress the reality — and it certainly doesn’t mean that artists should stay silent if they’re moved to share their point of view on the subject.
When I was a boy I struggled with my racial identity. My parents worked overtime to offset the deficits in the public school system, but indoctrination is a bitch and the stink of our oppressor pollutes the air of every institution we navigate. Lessons on slavery and the contributions that Black & Brown people make to society feel like brief flyovers, rather than meaningful treks through American history. The contextual potency of America’s original sin is intentionally diluted.
How else are we to get the full story if we don’t tell it ourselves?
Boyz n the Hood was a hard film for me to see at 11-years-old, but watching it showed me a more human and nuanced interpretation of people that looked like me than I was seeing on the news. The oppressor had convinced me that Black people weren’t capable of moral and social evolution, but Spike Lee’s Malcolm X showed me our capacity to change. The original Roots mini-series showed me an unrestrained depiction of the horrors of slavery that contrasted the more delicate version I was taught in grade school — Steve McQueen’s 12 Years a Slave would do the same for a new generation 36 years later.
You could argue that these are all stories about struggle. Ricky being gunned down in Boyz n the Hood; Malcom X fighting injustice and being assassinated at the prime of his influence; and Roots and 12 Years a Slave for obvious reasons. Sometimes there are glimmers of hope as in Boyz n the Hood, and sometimes there’s very little left over but pain as in 12 Years a Slave, but these stories present a reality that I wasn’t aware of. Furthermore, they’re supplemental materials for the lessons parents have a hard time teaching their children.
I can’t begin to image who I would be and what I wouldn’t know if, for some reason, those artists where shamed into not telling their story the way they wanted to tell it.
The Flip Side
I’ll be the first to say that not all of these stories feel like they’re made with the best intentions. A cunning and effective tactic of the oppressor is to devalue our movements into moments.
The idea here is to make it seem like the movement was fugazi from the onset.
As soon as Jordan Peele initiates a nuanced conversation around racism and appropriation with his film Get Out, the oppressor lures lesser known Black artists to make watered down versions, ensuring that the end product will play out like a superficial cash grab. When Americans en masse take to the streets to protest racial and systemic injustice, the oppressor satirizes the pulse of change in a bizarre Pepsi commercial, so comical in its indifference towards activism it drowns the message [in carbonated sugar water]. As soon as the country calls for more “diversity”, the oppressor seems to embrace the idea, but only so they can get close enough to suffocate it and muddy its clarity.
I hope you get the point I’m trying to make here: We don’t all tell stories about our struggle with the best intentions…because none of us are perfect, and there is immense pressure from gatekeepers to seize a moment rather than contribute to a movement.
I believe when someone tells a struggle story for the wrong reasons, they should be held accountable. The problem is, there’s no way for us to know the creator’s intentions unless they tell us — and if we accuse someone of telling their story for superficial reasons without knowing for a fact that’s what they’re doing, that accusation could deter them and others from telling these stories — and that could do more harm to our community in the long run.
I’m not trying to chastise anyone for expressing how you feel about an artist’s work, because you can do whatever you want. I might even agree with you. I’m just saying there’s always a chance you’re silencing someone who was just trying to do good.
I feel like what we need is balance. The number of struggle stories out there can get exhausting. Sometimes I watch movie previews and I’m like, “Damn, another one? We just had one of these pop off a couple months ago.” I love seeing shows like Atlanta, Insecure, and Ramy existing at the same levels as Barry Jenkins’ The Underground Railroad. It just breaks my heart when some of us defame the latter (which is masterful beyond words) because we’re so exhausted with images of our pain.
Simply put: We need to call for balance, not the abolition of an entire type of creative expression.
So where are we with this?
I think of a moment when I was speaking with someone about my film, The Black Disquisition, a true story about a racially charged traumatic moment in my life. This person had read the script and said, “This is type of thing people make just to make White people feel guilty.” I was taken aback. That’s not at all why I was making the film. I was making it for the same reason any genuine artist makes anything: Because I had to.
I paused for a beat and the words of Steve McQueen from when a reporter posed the same criticism to him echoed in my heart, and I asserted them back to this person: “I don’t make films for White people.”
I’m not so sure what the answer is with the “no more struggle stories” sentiment. After all, no one on either side of the argument is fully right or wrong. But I do cringe whenever a Black or Brown person tells another Black or Brown person that they shouldn’t be telling stories about our struggle.
I fear that pretty soon the oppressor won’t have to silence us, because in some ways we would be doing it to ourselves.
