Stayed out of the THEM discourse bc I have my own shit to write but I’m frustrated by the limited scope of our dialogue vis a vis the idea of “black pain” in the media.

If the discourse was centered on Amazon Prime’s programming where, I believe, Them is their first black show

it would be one thing, but it seems to encapsulate the entire media landscape by people who cover it and that’s distressing...bc most of black media’s output isn’t “black pain”?

There’s actually a lot more black comedy programming than anything much of it which isn’t watched or

doesn’t accomplish everything we want from it (like most shows on tv) and I feel this sense that dramas / tragedies must know EXACTLY what they are in their infancies is weird. Moreover the lack of grace around black creators does the work of white supremacy for whites.

Lena did what we want more ppl to do with their privilege: she made an opportunity for an untested writer without giving him too many hoops to jump over. Was it perfect? Maybe not but few first shows or first seasons are.

The same thing happened with discourse around Lovecraft.

How can we be critical of work without making strawman arguments to attach those critiques to and how can we be more generous to each other in an attempt to allow black people to fail and grow with unprecedented budgets and opportunities to tell stories?

Like I said in a recent panel for some of the audience looking at black pain at all can feel exhausting because we’ve seen so much of it, but in the history of film/television media in the west there have been maybe 5 authors who’ve told those stories who aren’t white till now.

Do we want to discourage a whole generation of authors still waiting to process their nightmares from even attempting on this bird app?

Or do we want to maybe start ignoring the ones that don’t work like we do the litany of black comedies we allow to flop bc of disinterest?