JUNETEENTH, THE MUSICAL IS COMING TO A STAGE NEAR YOU BUT IS THAT A GOOD THING?

"Kenya Barris & Pharrell Williams Team For ‘Juneteenth’ Stage Musical

“The acknowledgement and celebration of Juneteenth as an American and possibly international holiday is something that I would put in the life goals column for me,” said Barris in a statement. “For Peter and me to be able to team up with Pharrell on such an important project like this is something that neither of us in a billion years would have thought possible. "

https://deadline.com/2018/06/kenya-barris-pharrell-williams-juneteenth-stage-musical-black-ish-1202413429/

This sounds like a good thing. But it's probably not.

Pharrell Williams and Kenya Barris, both, appear to have a colorism problem. That is, they both appear to use paper bag tests --maybe even plastic bag tests-- to hire the mixed-race and mixed-race looking black women in their productions 

-- whether those productions be professional or personal



Tracee Ellis Ross may be the black-ety blackest of black women and a black feminist hero of mine, even if her Daddy is white. However, that doesn't change her pale skinned appeal to the color struck black men of Hollywood. 

Even if her skin color was not part of the reason she was cast, BLACK-ISH has had colorism problems in its storyline and even in it's hiring of guest stars -- Zendaya, Raven Symone, Rashida Jones.

How is it Roseanne Barr or ROSEANNE is the only one in Hollywood history to know a mixed race black child can indeed come out looking just like this:  

Jayden Rey from now defunct ROSEANNE

https://thegrio.com/2018/04/10/5-things-to-know-about-roseanne-star-jayden-rey/

That is, Rainbow's brothers and sisters did not have to be damn near white. And the daughter in Blackish? Her friends didn't have to be Zendaya pale either.

And I know of what I speak

There are at least a good half dozen white rapist slave owners in my ancestry. And I'm just as dark as Jayden Rey or darker while others in my family look almost white.

I haven't seen GROWN-ISH. I decided to ignore the colorism in BLACK-ISH same as I ignore other forms of white supremacy in some white created movies and television -- because I was already hooked before I realized it had elements bad for me and bad for the black community. 

But I decided not to watch GROWN-ISH ahead of time knowing the colorism would likely be there. And from what I've read the colorism in GROWN-ISH has at least doubled what was present in BLACK-ISH.

* * * * *


When Pharrell Williams was confronted about not having in black women on his GIRL album, he responded that the woman directly over his right shoulder IS black. When the confrontation continued, he infamously responded to black women, "You don't need me to represent you."  

https://jezebel.com/pharrell-to-black-women-you-dont-need-me-to-represent-1551220314

Not giving the slightest damn about what black women think of him, Williams has gone on to record some shady ass songs with the likes of Robin Thicke. Then Williams went on to produce the movie DOPE. 

And DOPE would have been a quasi-cool geek fest of a movie, if every last black woman in that movie didn't fall into the extra-pale WHAT-IS-SHE mixed-race-looking category. (And I'm almost sure Zoe Kravitz hadn't quite decided if she would identify as black by the time she filmed this movie.)  

* * * * *

I included the white and white-adjacent spouses and girlfriends of these two black men to make this point:  

All the black men who date white and light are NOT colorstruck, internalized-racism suffering, colorism swilling losers, 

BUT 

All the colorstruck, internalized-racism suffering, colorism swilling losers probably ARE sexing or married to white and light women only. 

And this is not just an idle observation. 

If colorism suffering black men are more likely to have a white wife, then we need to pay attention when this particular set of black men, who show no signs of valuing black women at all,  produce images of the black community where black women are erased -- at least those women who are immediately identifiable as black when you look them in the face. 

White people are not the only ones looking for the palest black woman they can find to put in movies and television.  

Let me say it again, if Ryan Coogler wasn't married to a black woman (who is likely a feminist) BLACK PANTHER might have looked a lot different. 

Meet the actresses cast as the DORA MILAJE in BLACK PANTHER 

in the alternate universe 

where  Kenya Barris and Pharrel Williams were 

the Executive Producers of the movie. 

Not necessarily, I mean I trust Steve McQueen who is also married to a white woman and maybe if W. Kamua Bell was making movies, I'd trust him too.   

But the vast majority of black producers in Hollywood, most of them male, haven't been put out much of anything that encourages and creates visions and flights of fancy for black girls that look undeniably black.

Black female content creators like Shonda Rhimes and Issa Rae have come along and created content where black girls who look black are the ones at the center of a story.

These two women, along with Ava DuVernay, Mara Brock Akil and others are creating a new crop of black female directors and executive producers. They are all taking affirmative actions to give new black female directors an opportunity to direct. So more and more little black girls are going to get their imaginations stimulated by television and movies; the movie BLACK PANTHER will not seem like the black unicorn of movies because black looking black women were in it in central roles. 

But it's more than a little disheartening to realize that black men and white men are neck-and-neck in the race to erase dark-skinned black women with black features. I mean, how do we stop white executive producers of television and movies from casting the whitest looking person they suspect is black as black characters, if we can't admit black content creators haven't been much different over decades and decades now? 

THE COLORISM PERPETUATED BY

BLACK CONTENT CREATORS 

MATTERS

BLaCKCHiCKRoCKeD.BLoGSPoT.CoM