THE FAILURE OF MICHAEL B JORDAN TO SEPARATE ARTIST FROM THE ART OF RAISING DION

I don't remember what Michael B Jordan specifically said 2 to 5 years back that made black women so angry he felt he had to defend himself by saying something like he can't dislike black women because his mother is a black woman. And I don't care.

But where there is smoke, there is fire. And black women have seen this particular smoke before.

Despite some black female prayers that Jordan was dating Lupita N'yongo earlier this year, most of us knew that it was only a matter of time before we saw him continue to step out with white woman after white woman after nearly-white woman.

Within the last few weeks, Jordan has been accused of throwing a yacht party in Italy with his white girlfriend where there wasn't a black woman in sight.

There could be a pale black woman outside this shot. But I doubt it. And it doesn't even matter because (ha-ha) Killmonger's lack of regard for black women had already been well established.

But this isn't about that.

This is about the fact that SOME black men in Hollywood who date outside the race **OR** pale-mixed-race looking women almost exclusively are not doing so based on love -- which does have some affect on the rest of us...because you really can't separate the art from the artist.

In fact, I can only think of two or three black men dating outside the race in Hollywood, Music and Sports who actually do or say anything positive toward black women who are dark-skinned and immediately identifiable as black as opposed to mixed-race-black.

Susan Kelechi Watson of THIS IS US
B4 hey blacked-up her hairz

Why is this important? Because your attitudes toward half of blackness is going usually going to come out in your art. 

Again, if somebody other than 
married-to-a-black-LOOKING-woman Ryan Coogler 
had made BLACK PANTHER 
we might not have seen a Kim Kardashian look-alikes 
playing Shuri and Okeye 
but we damn sure would have seen a
THIS IS US looking black women playing the DORA MILAJE



...which brings me back to Michael B Jordan's vision of RAISING DION. 

Michael B Jordan & "Raising Dion" Comic 

A man named Dennis Liu created the comic RAISING DION.

And in the comic book itself and the youtube video that he created to advertise(?) the comic book, the boy and his mother look like medium to dark-skinned black people.

Raising Dion YOUTUBE stills

Yet, this is who I saw cast first for the NETFLIX television series that Michael B Jordan is producing based on the same comic book

Alisha Wainright as Mom in RAISING DION

Later we saw that this is the little boy who was cast to be Dion

Ja'siah Young

Michael B Jordan appeared to have a bone marrow deep colorism problem before he was involved in RAISIHNG DION. That is, it appers he has a bone-marrow deep inability to see beauty in anything that isn't a white woman or in close proximity to a white woman. And so it shouldn't be shocking that this is oozing out of what he creates.

I'm guessing that he chooses the women he finds beautiful FIRST, then casts everybody else around them -- because you don't see too many light-skinned black males cast very often either. 

(As dark skin is associated with aggressiveness in the patriarchal-ly racist USA and aggressiveness is seen as "good" in men but not women, I'm guessing this is why behind no dark-women/ no light men wanted in Hollywood)

ANOTHER EXAMPLE OF THE FAILURE OF ARTIST TO SEPARATE SELF FROM ART 
Nate Parker's disregard for all women was made crystal clear when he tried to defend himself regarding rape charges he beat when he was in college

And when I finally saw his movie on HBO --BIRTH OF A NATION -- a movie I'd been looking forward to for more than a year before I heard him cry for himself over what sounded like legit rape charges-- it shouldn't have been surprising that black women were used as props to make the black men look like heroes in BIRTH OF A NATION. 

Gabrielle Union's character didn't even speak. His wife's rape was placed in the story as an affront to his manhood, her character barely made two dimensional, much less three.

A THIRD EXAMPLE OF THE FAILURE OF ARTIST TO SEPARATE SELF FROM ART

Within the last year or John Ridley (12 YEARS A SLAVE), produced a series about how the Black Power Movement played out in Great Britain. There was a love story at the center of his story but Ridley didn't cast a black woman as the co-star 

When he was pressed on this point -- and on the fact that he DID cast a dark-skinned black woman as a traitor in one of the first episodes -- he cried and told his critical black women in the auditorium where he was speaking that he wanted to show/teach the audience that many different races contributed to that resistance 

...and he wanted to make sure his wife felt included.

Who a person is comes out in what they create. In my mind, this is pretty close to THE reason for creativity's existence. I don't know who came up with "separate the art from the artist" But that's a bunch of crap from where I sit. 

Now...DO NOT HEAR ME CYBER-SAY that every black man who hooks up with a white woman or light woman is looking for a status symbol in her skin color as she hangs on his arm.

DO NOT HEAR ME CYBER-SAY every black man who is pictured with a white woman or light woman is just using her.

But black men are being bombarded by white as beautiful day-in and day-out. We all are. And well before television and movies ever existed whites were finding ways to tell blacks that they were better, stronger, faster, and more beautiful.  

And WE ALL should KNOW that some black men believed white people so deeply that they accepted Miss Anne's invitation to have sex between the years of 1621 and 1968 --at the literal risk of their own necks. 

Some black men like the status symbols of manhood so much -- and that's what a white woman or light woman becomes when she is sexually objectified-- that 1 out of 8 of black men actually voted for Donald Trump.

All that this 13% of black men can see when they look at him is that he is rich, large and in charge -- his virulent racism be damned if they can find hand holds enough to climb he white supremacy and come out on top as a "real man."  

 And follows is just as bad in my mind

Currently, too large a section of black women are so deep into the competition to get a limited edition, black man's attention that they are wearing waist-length straight weaves -- which aren't cheap to get or maintain. (I'll wear whatever hair style I want, when I want. But when you do that 24/7/365 instead of a couple of months out of the year, it might be more than just fashion choice. Just a thought)

Furthermore, black women (and latino and asian women) are also seeking out skin bleaching creams; and they are doing this for logical if bad reasons. These wanna-be-pale sistahs know they cannot be chosen as status symbols unless they are as close to white women in appearance as possible.    

For some poor women without much education, being dark skinned has been so painful that they are taking pills to try an ensure their children won't face the same discrimination and pain they themselves suffered -- from their own people, from other black people before they even have to deal with white people.

All of this together means that it would be foolish of us, as black people, to NOT LOOK and see if a black person's "dating preferences" aren't more than that, that colorist motives aren't seeping out in the black images he or she is producing for black consumption.

I don't care who some of these black men were dating BEFORE they were rich and famous. The O J Simpons and Bill Cosbys and Michael B Jordans of this world are sometimes unleashed as who they truly are only when they get enough money that they feel they don't have to answer to anybody.

When black women saw Michael B Jordan's dating habits as a possible problem, he shouldn't have been allowed anywhere near RAISING DION.

#ListenToBlackWomen has more than one use.

I'm sure this project is going to go forward and be successful. But to me that's the problem.

COSBY, A DIFFERENT WORLD, MY WIFE AND KIDS, BLACKISH, and GROWNISH all started off with casting bi-racial girls as the sexy "black" teenage daughters that the father has to guard. Most of us didn't notice this at all -- and have STILL made no connection between that -- what our minds are being fed through black entertainment-- to what black men prefer in a mate once they get a little money in their pocket, which in turn influences black girls "fashion" choices.

Again, when that colorism-brainwashed black man gets rich in Hollywood he gets to feed us more of the same colorism his own mind was destroyed by.

RAISING DION may make a lot of people happy and rich. But it's going to be another successful looking fail for black folks and especially black children...again.

Dennis Liu's 2015 vision of RAISING DION
from YOUTUBE

BLaCKCHiCKRoCKeD.BLoGSPoT.CoM