The Caucasity of Nope, Magical Negros in the Era of Black Lives Matter & Black Girl Magic.

Dear Internets and People that know me,

If I ever have the caucasity to make a ‘white guilt, magical-slave-accented-uneducated-negro who’s so dark and troubled the good hearted white folks in their all white town just feel terrible and take so much pity on him they begin to treat him like an actual person and he in turn dedicates his life to these noble but lost good white people by using his magical negro slave powers and other worldly sage like wisdom to save the good white peoples from their own white dysfunction’ type movie as seen in the trailer of the new film ‘Same Kind of Different As Me’, please promptly kick me in my mouth, snatch my black card and immediately give it to Stacey Dash or Ben Carson.

There are three words that come to mind when watching this trailer and that other Eddie Murphy magical negro ‘I jus luv tuh cook fuh white folks and take care of dey chirrens for my entire damn life’ ass movie white guilt sommelier’s love to watch: I can’t even.

No, like for real. My can’t evens can’t even shan’t even.

This trailer is so offensive it made me almost quit acting.

This trailer is so offensive the Martin Luther King memorial began to actually weep.

This trailer is so offensive Rachael Dolezal took out her weave, canceled her tanning appointments indefinitely and joined the Peace Corps.

This trailer is so offensive the moment I clicked play, it sent a violent white guilt shock wave back through the space/time continuum that smacked field slaves every where across the face so hard they stopped working and singing spirituals, stood up in the cotton fields like meerkats in the serengeti and yell curses at God!

This trailer is so offensive Harriet Tubman nearly drowned in a flash flood of white guilt tears and made her strongly consider not going back to save no-goddamn-body.

This trailer is so offensive Donald Trump asked if he could finance a sequel.

If I ever see Djimon Hounsou on the street I don’t know whether to throw these hands at him for agreeing to make this deleted scene from ‘Song Of The South’ or hug him cuz clearly he’s fallen on hard times and gotten desperate enough to do this job for the check. (I mean, bruh, I get that bills have to get paid but, come on. You made ‘AMISTAD’. You know better.)

In the era of Black Lives Matter & Black Girl Magic we need our images and stories to speak to the reality of our larger social and historical context. Art, especially good art, should speak to what’s happening in the world we live in. It should ‘disturb the comfortable and comfort the disturbed’. And frankly, if this trailer is evidence to the film as a whole, white hollywood hasn’t learned much since Oscars So white.

This year alone, we’ve literally watched black women crush the Olympics, climb flag poles, be photographed making police in riot gear be taken aback in the sheer magnificence that is black radiance. Beyoncé channeled the ghost of Malcolm X at the Superbowl for God’s sake. We bore witness (hallelujah) to the sermon on the mount/call to action that is Jesse Williams at the BET Awards. Carmelo Anthony took out a full page ad challenging black athletes to use their platforms to speak out against inequality and police brutality. Even Michael Jordan donated some money to help the cause. There are young people literally walking around Harlem right now wearing dashikis affirming themselves and being openly critical about social and judicial policy.

So what kind of vanilla bubble is hollywood living in where stories told that feature black characters like Mr. Church and characters like him?

Films like ‘Mr. Church’ & ‘Same Kind Of Different As Me’ don’t really care to explore the humanity of the black characters at the center of it’s narratives. It only means to use them as a prop, a tool, an artistic beast of burden if you will whose sole purpose is to use black stereotypes and archaic social tropes to fertilize and tend the soil of the complexities of white folks humanity.

In the era where watching black men and women getting murdered by law enforcement is only a Facebook Live click away, now more than ever do we need fresh stories being told about black people that further enriches our humanity. There are parts of America where the only access to exploring black humanity is through our work as artists and athletes. We need to offer films that don’t meekly ask permission for our humanity to be showcased but demand it. It’s why films like the forthcoming ‘Hidden Figures’ (the untold story about the black women at NASA, mathematicians, who figured out how to send a man to space) are so necessary.

Can we just do the world a favor, white people in Hollywood, and not make any more movies like Same Kind Of Different as Me?

I will thank you.

Black people everywhere will thank you.

The ghosts of Rosa Parks, Shirley Chisolm, and Phyllis Wheatley/& Hyman will thank you.