I want to articulate this.

Even in the most benign films, non-white audiences are required to endure the scope of white humanity in a way that white audiences usually don’t have to.

Here, Arthur Jafa talks about how that lack frustrates the ability to see Black folks as human.

This is one of my favorite movies of all-time.

But, it’s often regarded as non-racial.

This creates a synonymity between whiteness and humanity, and allows the villain’s different skin color to go on without any interrogation.

Black audiences (because we’ve developed this muscle, as Jafa says) are truly exceptional at engaging film or television that doesn’t prioritize us.

For example.

I know far more black people who engaged WandaVision than white people who engaged I May Destroy You.

Why?

I was watching this intriguing short by Lynne Ramsey last night and I was thinking how this exact short featuring black girls would’ve been described as a short about black girlhood.

I know that black girlhood is specific.

But, like white girlhood, it can also be universal.

Ending on this.

Jafa says that he specifically makes art for Black people and if anyone else can relate then cool.

In an old Moonlight interview, Barry Jenkins said something similar about how to navigate the specific/universal tension.