Most black people exist between two realities…between two orbits of consciousness. The idea of double-consciousness started back in 1903 due to the philosophy of W.E.B DuBois. He describes this idea as the individual sensation of feeling as though your identity is divided into several parts, making it basically impossible to have one unified identity.
Being multi-dimensional can be seen as a positive thing. But multiple identities….that’s stepping into a steep pile of shit. A pile of shit so deep that you can barely find the mirror in the pile of shit. With double-consciousness, you run the risk of losing your entire self. The things that make you whole. The things that make you, you.
It’s this double-consciousness that serves as the background for Sorry to Bother You. Bold in color and spirit, the independent film stars Lakeith Stanford as Cassius Green, a hungry, but lost soul in Oakland, California, trying to find a way to make ends meet. You find Cassius constantly asking himself, “What’s out there for me?” “What am I meant to be great at?”
It’s a question we all ask of ourselves, but for a person of color in an environment that doesn’t promise you much…the grief comes as soon as we are left without an immediate sense of belonging. Throughout the movie, you find Cassius looking to a picture of who I assume to be his father beaming from ear to ear in front of a shining car. I can only guess one of two things: his father attained a certain level of happiness that he was also aiming for or his father never attained the happiness that he now felt responsible for earning.
Cassius looks to his girlfriend, Detroit (played by Tessa Thompson), and sees the opposite of himself — someone who seems to have found happiness in her calling. As an artist of many sorts, Detroit uses her voice to speak against oppression. She’s content. It’s not that she’s complacent or doesn’t dream for more, but she’s found her place in her community and her energy radiates throughout the film.
Cassius finds his resolve in telemarketing, where he finds his white voice. This is where shit gets interesting.
I chuckled the first time he was taught his white voice. I chuckled because it’s a mechanism that most Black people use when we are placed in an environment where we become a fraction…where we become one of many. It’s a defensive tactic that we use so that we can feel safe and at the same time make others feel safe. We aim to be unthreatening so that we can be accepted into a place where we most likely are being questioned at first glance of our skin color.
My friends and I laughed about this a while ago. We joked about how we overuse the word “Awesome” when there is nothing else left to say. I explained this to an agency partner about a month ago. I told her, “if you met me outside of work, my voice would be less high pitched than it is right now.”
The irony of it all, is that my black classmates in 6th grade accused me of talking white. I remember the confusion I felt and the slight embarrassment. Was it “talking white” because I used proper grammar? Because I pronounced every single syllable aloud?
My parents were born and raised in a British-owned country, Guyana. There was only proper grammar in our home no matter if spoken with a thick Caribbean accent. I found my hood voice in public school as a protective mechanism — I had to learn how to not be labeled as “the other”. My double-consciousness started there…the moment that the authenticity of my blackness was questioned.
The person who introduces Cassius to his white voice is his co-worker, Langston, played by Danny Glover. Danny Glover’s character did something very important. He broke down what it means to talk white. Finally, I have an answer to the question I asked myself and my family after my introduction to middle school linguistic politics in the hood.
He explains that using a white voice means you sound like you have no care in the world. Your bills are paid. You have a Ferrari sitting outside. You never lost a job. You don’t care if you make or lose money today.
And in that moment, he equated talking white to the privilege that white American enjoy due to systemic racism. In an instant, Cassius turns from a troubled, financially-bound Black man with his shoulders hunched over to a confident, money-making machine.
He uses his white voice to get the things he always thought would bring him happiness, with money at the top of the list. And of course, he ends up losing his way and his identity.
This presents the problem I asserted earlier — going too far into one side of the double-consciousness to the point you no longer recognize yourself. You become someone else in the pursuit of your dreams, and what once you left you grounded is now seemingly against you.
4 years in corporate America left this film feeling all too much of a reality for me despite the imaginative production and colorful screening led by Boots Riley. I could relate to Cassius in so many ways. He’s driven to excel at work to help his uncle save his home but gets lost in the success. Going to work became more of playing a game, and every time I started my player, I had a new mask…a new identity.
I would be jolted back to reality every time I returned home to East Orange, NJ, and I would see my community and neighborhood decaying at every turn. The beautiful home and family that once existed on that street were victims of foreclosure and now their beautiful home was boarded up. The high school that I took pride was now a transit stop in life…not a place for young minds to be nourished. And what was I doing about it?
I was living a cushy life tucked in the middle of America selling pharmaceutical drugs. It started to eat away at my spirit and was a main contributor to my overall discontent and negative mood. I couldn’t recognize myself and I could see people I once called friends searching in my eyes for the girl they once knew. I was searching for myself in their eyes too.
Sorry to Bother You shows the success story of someone in this situation. I’ll spare the details, but Cassius finds his way out. I think it’s because he has constant reminders around him like Detroit and the photograph of his father, that encourage him to re-discover his morality.
Although the use of “the white voice” seems to be only for comedic effect, it’s a larger message behind it and what I believe to be the foundation of this story’s meaning.
Sorry to Bother You is a passive apology for an aggressive wake-up call to jump out of the deep realm of double-consciousness.
