That unease many viewers felt from last night& #39;s #LovecraftCountry https://abs.twimg.com/hashflags... draggable="false" alt=""> comes from that particular haint *haunting all of US children& #39;s media.* #TheShadowBook

(This isn& #39;t hard stuff - Morrison taught us this going on 30 years ago. Bernstein walked us through it in Racial Innocence.)
The impact of Uncle Tom& #39;s Cabin on the development of children& #39;s media in the United States can& #39;t be overstated.

A *lot* of the impetus behind early counterstories for Black children (pre-Brownies& #39; Book) was because that imagery was so pervasive. *Ubiquitous in the culture.*
I graduated 2 courses short of my theatre education minor at FAMU. Professor Luther Wells taught us that minstrelsy was the foundation of the US stage & screen.

(This US minstrelsy tradition can be found from The Cat in the Hat to Mickey Mouse to Little House on the Prairie.)
What happened in #LovecraftCountry https://abs.twimg.com/hashflags... draggable="false" alt=""> last night was a brilliant metaphor for US Black girlhood itself. It unsettles us because it& #39;s supposed to...

All of us who were dreaming Black girls can relate to running away from that particular caricature in our storied imaginations.
I have named my colleagues who work specifically on this. I& #39;m hoping the burgeoning field of Black girlhood studies incorporates the scholars searching for origins in pre-20th century media.

(I sincerely wish I& #39;d found a way to mention Topsy in #TheDarkFantastic. Next time!)
Adultification is one thing, but I urge folks to continue to press further. Yes, Black girls are being denied their childhood, and suffer the consequences thereof.

Yes... and the horror is much worse than that.

*Thingification* is useful here. It& #39;s not that Topsy is adultified.
Every time I want to press for adult or animal metaphors, my academic BFF, a 19th cen Af Am scholar goes:

No. Not quite an adult.
No. Not quite an animal.

It& #39;s because of her that I wrote, "We are the monsters."
That episode gave me so much life. It was like a shot in the arm for my critical AND creative work after a month of slogging through.

Because yes.

Yes.
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