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Speaker 2: From the page to the screen to the stage. Black
Speaker 2: artists have bemoaned the demand for them to perform struggle
Speaker 2: for white audiences.
Speaker 1: Some call it poverty porn, others call it trauma porn.
Speaker 1: You may have heard the phrases misery lit or misery memoirs.
Speaker 2: Yep, I've definitely heard those terms kicked around, but they
Speaker 2: focused on the end product, the movie, the book, the play.
Speaker 2: But there's a web of actors and interests that make
Speaker 2: sure these products exist in the first place. And that's
Speaker 2: why I've coined the term Black struggle industrial complex.
Speaker 1: Okay, I see the system thinking.
Speaker 2: You see it, and I've come to see that many
Speaker 2: relationships make up the Black struggle industrial complex, and multiple
Speaker 2: parties benefit from it. And while there's a bunch of
Speaker 2: examples of stories that have been accused of being trauma
Speaker 2: porn or poverty porn, some storytellers break the fourth wall
Speaker 2: and show us how they relate to this complex.
Speaker 1: Stories like Percival Everett's Erasure, which was recently adapted into
Speaker 1: a movie called American Fiction, pull back the curtain on
Speaker 1: the black struggle industrial complex and shine a satirical light
Speaker 1: on all its moving parts.
Speaker 2: I loved Erasure. The novel tells the story of Thelonious
Speaker 2: Monk Ellison, a black author and university professor who becomes
Speaker 2: frustrated with the expectations and stereotypes associated with the black literature.
Speaker 2: In response, he writes the parody of what he sees
Speaker 2: as stereotypical ghetto fiction under a pseudonym. To Monk's surprise,
Speaker 2: the book becomes a literary sensation and hygiens ensu.
Speaker 1: When an early screening of American Fiction came to Atlanta,
Speaker 1: you know, we had to pull up. If they want stereotypes,
Speaker 1: I'll give them one. What is this? Nobody's gonna publish this.
Speaker 3: I just want to rub their nose, isn't it?
Speaker 1: We love it?
Speaker 3: What?
Speaker 2: You know? We had a lot of thoughts after the
Speaker 2: credits rolled.
Speaker 1: I guess I want to start by asking you, Katie,
Speaker 1: what is your initial gut reaction to the film now
Speaker 1: that we finished it.
Speaker 2: Gut feeling, liked it, thought it was funny, entertained, liked
Speaker 2: some of the changes, didn't like other changes.
Speaker 1: My gut reaction is that it was fun like it
Speaker 1: seemed very mainstream and that's not kind of how I
Speaker 1: imagined the book Erasure to be. The black struggle industrial
Speaker 1: complex was real in that movie.
Speaker 2: Indeed, it had all the parts.
Speaker 1: Okay, go ahead and break it down for us, Katie.
Speaker 2: All right, So the anatomy of the black struggle industrial
Speaker 2: complex is well complex are with the most obvious the creator.
Speaker 2: And as we saw in Erasure, in American fiction, there
Speaker 2: are two types of creators, the ones who chaf against
Speaker 2: the demands to present black struggle stories and those who
Speaker 2: see it as a ticket for individual material gain.
Speaker 1: So the main character interrature and American fiction, Thelnius Monk Ellison,
Speaker 1: is clearly the former. And would you say his foil
Speaker 1: Juanita May Jenkins, who was renamed Centaur Golden for the movie,
Speaker 1: author of the best selling Weeze Lives in the Ghetto,
Speaker 1: is an example of the latter.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I would the movie gave us more insight into
Speaker 2: Wanita's mindset than the book, like in the scene where
Speaker 2: Monk confronts her about her books perpetuating stereotypes. And by
Speaker 2: the way, going for it, I'm going to refer to
Speaker 2: her as just Juania, but we mean Juanita in the
Speaker 2: book and Cintaa in the movie My Thing is some
Speaker 2: people's actual stories are what some would call stereotypes. Stereotypes
Speaker 2: don't come out of thin air. Some folks actually live
Speaker 2: that life. But one of the major tenets of the
Speaker 2: black struggle industrial complay is a pandering to white people's
Speaker 2: guilt or their need to be liked or feel cool.
Speaker 2: It varies, but the black creator supplies what they need.
Speaker 1: Hmm, okay, can you explain more what you mean by that?
Speaker 2: Yeah. So, both Monk's book My Pathology or later renamed Fuck,
Speaker 2: and Wanita's book We Lived in the Ghetto are held
Speaker 2: as honest, raw a true representation of what it's like
Speaker 2: to be black in America. Juanita even says that was
Speaker 2: part of her motivation for writing the book.
Speaker 3: What really struck me was that too few books were
Speaker 3: about my people. Where are our stories? Where's our representation?
Speaker 2: But both Monks and Janita's books aren't true or representative
Speaker 2: of anything they know personally. Monks is completely made up,
Speaker 2: and that's the gag. Our Ratio delves into this more
Speaker 2: than American fiction. But Fuck My Pathology is about a
Speaker 2: deadbeat dad who assaults black women and fantasizes about stabbing
Speaker 2: his mom. There really aren't any significant white characters, so
Speaker 2: it gives the white audience of heuristic experience. Even the
Speaker 2: title my pathology points to all the problems in this
Speaker 2: black community being the black people's own backwardness. It never
Speaker 2: touches on systemic issues. Denby Dan's rappers crack.
Speaker 1: You said you wanted black stuff. That's black, right. So
Speaker 1: white people get this gritty story from the hood without
Speaker 1: having to feel guilty about how they may have contributed
Speaker 1: to making the conditions of the.
Speaker 2: Hood exactly And similarly, we learned from reading A Rasure
Speaker 2: that Juanita spent a week in Harlem with her cousins
Speaker 2: and wrote her book. Otherwise she's lived a really privileged life,
Speaker 2: went to a prestigious school, got a sought after job
Speaker 2: upon graduation. Monk is a PhD. Both his siblings are
Speaker 2: medical doctors. His father wasn't empty. His family seems extremely
Speaker 2: well off. They have two houses, a beach house and
Speaker 2: a primary residence, and a living maid, so both of
Speaker 2: them are cappin. But they get put on this pedestal
Speaker 2: of being the few to speak for millions of black Americans.
Speaker 2: And I'm not saying hood shit and trauma shouldn't be
Speaker 2: written about. But who gets to write about hoodshit and
Speaker 2: trauma is what's interesting to me when it comes to
Speaker 2: the black struggle industrial complex.
Speaker 1: Like who gets propped up and puts to the forefront
Speaker 1: and what agenda is that serving?
Speaker 2: Yeah, because on the other hand, works that have been
Speaker 2: accused of being trauma porn often have a white savior involved,
Speaker 2: so the white audience can identify with being the good guy, like.
Speaker 1: Twelve Years a Slave, Freedom, Writers, The Help.
Speaker 2: There's so many but works to speak to trauma and
Speaker 2: indict white supremacy, capitalism, and fascism as a culprit, those
Speaker 2: books get banned. George Jackson's Blood in My Eye would
Speaker 2: never be a part of the Black struggle industrial complex
Speaker 2: because it's not serving either role of making white people
Speaker 2: feel better or pandering to their guilt.
Speaker 1: Do you think Wanita and creators like her who play
Speaker 1: into the system are cognizant of what they're doing.
Speaker 2: I do think there's some cognitive dissidence going on. Like
Speaker 2: to talk about representation, I think is a popular cop out,
Speaker 2: like any depiction of black people on the screen is
Speaker 2: a good thing, But deep down, I do think they
Speaker 2: know what they're doing like.
Speaker 1: In the movie when Monk likens Juanita's writing to a
Speaker 1: drug dealer rationalizing selling drugs by saying that he's just
Speaker 1: giving folks what they want, and Janit equips, well, I
Speaker 1: think drugs should be.
Speaker 2: Legal, and I mean, it's a really attractive deal. In
Speaker 2: this instance, millions of dollars are on the table for
Speaker 2: whoever is willing to make these stories, So I can
Speaker 2: see why and how someone would rationalize it.
Speaker 1: And Monk quickly realizes that too, that no matter how
Speaker 1: much he despises it, in order for him to be
Speaker 1: a materially successful author, he has to give up all
Speaker 1: the Greek mythology writing and embody these stereotypes, even if
Speaker 1: he does so under a pen name.
Speaker 2: I mean, and even in the book in the movie,
Speaker 2: Monk chafed it against it, but then ultimately wrote his
Speaker 2: parody and he was saying like, oh, you know, I'm
Speaker 2: doing it to stick it to the man, but also like,
Speaker 2: you're not dumb because you saw that we lives in
Speaker 2: the ghetto, which is essentially the same type of which
Speaker 2: you're doing really well. Mentioned Yeah, so you saw that
Speaker 2: you needed money to put your mom up in this
Speaker 2: assisted living center, so you're against it, but you're like
Speaker 2: when push comes to shove money talk and you took
Speaker 2: that money, you weren't like now I'm just playing, y'all
Speaker 2: are also stupid. I'm gonna be on my moral high ground.
Speaker 1: And broke, and that's that on it.
Speaker 2: So, as creators ourselves, what has been your experience with
Speaker 2: the black struggle industrial complex? Like, have you been tempted?
Speaker 2: Have you participated in it?
Speaker 1: It's such a tough question because I don't feel like
Speaker 1: I've ever been tempted to amp up my blackness for
Speaker 1: any sort of writing that I've ever done. I've also
Speaker 1: never been explicitly asked to do so, Like nobody's ever
Speaker 1: said you have to add more struggle in here, or
Speaker 1: you have to add more trauma in here. But I
Speaker 1: am often in a position where I am one of
Speaker 1: few black wrins who is working with the publication, and
Speaker 1: so I'm working on black assignments that were given to
Speaker 1: me because I'm black. But I also choose them because
Speaker 1: it's within the realm of things that I write. I
Speaker 1: care about blackness and I care about writing about it,
Speaker 1: so it's a choice on my end too. So it's
Speaker 1: two sides of the coin. Where the editors and the
Speaker 1: publications that I'm involved with have power in what they're
Speaker 1: assigning me. But I also have my own powered agency
Speaker 1: and the things that I choose to either pitch and
Speaker 1: or take and continue to write because I care about them.
Speaker 1: And I'm fortunate enough to say that I have had
Speaker 1: the privilege to be able to choose to write what
Speaker 1: I want to write. And I've never been in a
Speaker 1: space where for money, I absolutely have to write a thing,
Speaker 1: and have to write a thing that I know is
Speaker 1: going to be lucrative for me. But I would like
Speaker 1: to know your experience with it too. Have you ever
Speaker 1: been tempted?
Speaker 2: Yeah, So there was this time when I was like
Speaker 2: pitching my business for like different grants and stuff, and
Speaker 2: there was like a competition I was a part of,
Speaker 2: and you had to pitch your bit business and you know,
Speaker 2: maybe it's like a five minute pitch. And I noticed
Speaker 2: that it was like a mix of people. It was
Speaker 2: like black people, Latino people, white people, all pitching their businesses.
Speaker 2: And so my business a black bookstore. I was talking
Speaker 2: about just like how I grew up, how my mom
Speaker 2: was like really into like teaching me and my brother
Speaker 2: how to read and really loving black literature. And then
Speaker 2: I also shared that my grandfather never knew how to read,
Speaker 2: and he lived to be eighty two and he never
Speaker 2: learned how to read. And I thought that like really
Speaker 2: fit into the story. And we would practice the pitches
Speaker 2: in front of each other, right, and so then I
Speaker 2: would like hear other people's pitches get a little more,
Speaker 2: you know, like sob story is and I'm like, wait,
Speaker 2: am I doing that? You know? So it wasn't like
Speaker 2: anyone saying like, oh, like you really need to like
Speaker 2: pull out that struggle, which my grandfather not knowing how
Speaker 2: to read. I didn't see it as like something as
Speaker 2: like a struggle for me personally, like definitely a struggle
Speaker 2: for him. But if anything, it really just emphasized how
Speaker 2: much reading was important. So I talk about the cop
Speaker 2: in your head, but also the white taste maker in
Speaker 2: your head, or like knowing that white people may feel
Speaker 2: guilty that my grandfather didn't know how to read because
Speaker 2: he grew up in like Jim Crow, Mississippi, and they
Speaker 2: had a hand in that. So I think that was
Speaker 2: one example where I felt like kind of uncomfortable and
Speaker 2: I was like kind of seeing it play out even
Speaker 2: I think about that with like the book that I'm
Speaker 2: writing now, I'm like, did I get this book deal
Speaker 2: just because like black stuff was going on and like
Speaker 2: white publishers and editors feel guilty about all the shit
Speaker 2: black people were going through in twenty twenty and they're like, Okay,
Speaker 2: like you get a book deal now. You know what
Speaker 2: I'm saying. And it's not that I'm personally like writing
Speaker 2: anything that I think is handering to that, but I'm
Speaker 2: writing the book in general that I do think is
Speaker 2: a product of that.
Speaker 1: Do you feel like your motivation for writing the book
Speaker 1: is because you knew that you could capitalize off of
Speaker 1: the moment.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I thought it was like very of the moment,
Speaker 2: like we need to capture what's going on with the
Speaker 2: black bookstores. So yeah, I think I'm thelonious girl.
Speaker 1: I think that's going to stretch too far because he
Speaker 1: went way into it. He went deep, deep down in
Speaker 1: the whole. Girl.
Speaker 2: I'm writing my pathology too.
Speaker 1: Girl, I don't think that's the case. I think you're
Speaker 1: overstating it. I think for me sometimes it happens more
Speaker 1: on the end, where the work is already published in
Speaker 1: the editorial process, versus it being during the content creation stage,
Speaker 1: and I have white audiences inevitably reading the work and
Speaker 1: they compliment me on it. Sometimes I question the value
Speaker 1: of my work because I'm wondering, do they just like
Speaker 1: this just because it gets a peek into a black mind,
Speaker 1: the black thought process, you know, Black society, that they
Speaker 1: get an insider's view of it all. I wonder, is
Speaker 1: this because I'm a great writer, or is it like
Speaker 1: they say, like they really enjoyed the work. Is that true?
Speaker 1: Or is that because of all the other toppings piled
Speaker 1: on top of it that they get to get this
Speaker 1: view from a person who they consider thoughtful and conscientious
Speaker 1: about black things.
Speaker 2: And I think that's like kind of the central issue
Speaker 2: that you know, Polonius is battling with because he is
Speaker 2: trying to write really like in depth characters who you know,
Speaker 2: have like an interior life and like great dialogue in
Speaker 2: his books that he likes writing, and nobody likes them,
Speaker 2: no one reads them, you know, like they're in the
Speaker 2: wrong section of the bookstore. But then when he writes
Speaker 2: just kind of like a parody of black life, it
Speaker 2: takes off and it makes me think about, like how
Speaker 2: much did the author of a racer Percival ever identify
Speaker 2: with the main character. Because Percival has written a lot
Speaker 2: of books. He's also a professor, and not saying that
Speaker 2: his books like we're doing as bad as Thelonious is,
Speaker 2: but this book and in the book, you get to
Speaker 2: read the entirety of the parody book he wrote. So
Speaker 2: this book has that ghetto shit in there. And so
Speaker 2: this is the book that gets adapted into a movie.
Speaker 2: Right in a.
Speaker 1: Way, this is kind of ironic to think about, but
Speaker 1: Percival Everett's thoughts in this book are kind of a
Speaker 1: stand in for the race because this is something that
Speaker 1: we have to do a lot, which is kind of
Speaker 1: ironic because part of this whole thing that he's railing
Speaker 1: against is like being able to represent the race with
Speaker 1: these caricatures and stereotypes and identification with black struggle. So
Speaker 1: I think that it's very telling that this is the
Speaker 1: book that got an adaptation and got a lot of
Speaker 1: big names in it. I think that's worth mentioning too,
Speaker 1: because there are Sterling K. Brown's in the movie, Issa
Speaker 1: Ray's in the movie, Jeffrey in the movie, Erica Alexander
Speaker 1: is in the movie. So there are a lot of
Speaker 1: big names in this, So it was clearly something that
Speaker 1: the studios thought was going to be a big draw
Speaker 1: for people, because they were willing to get people who
Speaker 1: are such upstanding actors in it. So yeah, maybe in
Speaker 1: a way, this is kind of like representative of what
Speaker 1: the author was talking about in the book.
Speaker 2: More parts of the Anatomy of the Black Struggle Industrial
Speaker 2: Complex after the break. Since money is a big factor
Speaker 2: in the Black struggle industrial complex, let's look at the
Speaker 2: next part of the system.
Speaker 1: Let me guess the buyer.
Speaker 2: The buyer.
Speaker 1: The buyer has the money, they're funding the whole operation.
Speaker 2: Yes, the white taste makers wield so much power in
Speaker 2: this situation.
Speaker 1: In American fiction, they're portrayed as kind of oblivious.
Speaker 2: If there's already so much buzzy because of the.
Speaker 1: Movie deal, Michael B. Jordan is circling.
Speaker 2: We want to put them on the cover and one
Speaker 2: of those scarves, I guess you would call them tied
Speaker 2: around his head a do rag.
Speaker 1: That's it easily tricked.
Speaker 2: Is this based on your actual life?
Speaker 1: Yeah?
Speaker 3: You think some bitch ass college boy can come up
Speaker 3: with that shit?
Speaker 1: No, no, no, I don't. They're prejudiced, only allowing a
Speaker 1: certain black narrative to be mainstream, but they aren't depicted
Speaker 1: as overtly racist.
Speaker 2: No, not at all. The buyers of the Black struggle
Speaker 2: industrial Complex product aren't waving Confederate flags or storming the capitol.
Speaker 2: And as far as being oblivious, I think that's just
Speaker 2: not true. Like they want to come across as oblivious
Speaker 2: to deny culpability, but they know what they're doing. As writers,
Speaker 2: I think the people we deal with the most are
Speaker 2: editors as we're writing for these publications. You see, these
Speaker 2: editors can give a yes or no on the stories
Speaker 2: that get written and eventually public. They're the tastemakers and
Speaker 2: the king makers. If they decide they don't like you
Speaker 2: or what you're saying, it's not going to get through them.
Speaker 2: And of course you can self publish or find other publications.
Speaker 2: But there's a difference between being in the New York
Speaker 2: Times in a random blog, and it's so much power.
Speaker 2: They're not going to give it up just because you
Speaker 2: point out to them that it's unfair. They know, and
Speaker 2: they're on the right side of the unfairness sucks for
Speaker 2: everybody else.
Speaker 1: The director of American Fiction Court Jefferson, talked about this
Speaker 1: in an interview with the BBC, he said, I realized
Speaker 1: that people would ask me, do you want to write
Speaker 1: about this slave? Do you want to write about this
Speaker 1: drug dealer? Do you want to write about this gang member?
Speaker 1: And I realized that these kind of rigid restrictions as
Speaker 1: to what black life looks like were being placed on me,
Speaker 1: even in the world of fiction, which blew my mind.
Speaker 1: They're also the middlemen, like the agents.
Speaker 2: Yes, they're exactly that.
Speaker 1: Yeah, he knew the plot, but was pushing Monk to
Speaker 1: not fumble the.
Speaker 2: Bag because ultimately, the agent needs the black struggle stories
Speaker 2: to sell in order to get paid, so they're going
Speaker 2: to encourage it too.
Speaker 1: They're offering four million dollars for the movie, right, behave
Speaker 1: the richer. I get the agent claims to be against
Speaker 1: sensationalism over substance, but is he really How can he
Speaker 1: be when his livelihood is so tied up in it
Speaker 1: and he's not even the creative So he's really just
Speaker 1: at the whim of two actors in the black struggle
Speaker 1: industrial complex. And I might add that in the book,
Speaker 1: there is a part where he says, you're gonna get
Speaker 1: three million dollars for this movie. Deal that means I'm
Speaker 1: going to get three hundred thousand.
Speaker 2: So he is calculated.
Speaker 1: Yes, he needs to run with it, sir.
Speaker 2: He don't even need that calculator. App he knows what
Speaker 2: his cut gonna be. And that brings us to the
Speaker 2: final part of the Black struggle industrial complexes anatomy the audience.
Speaker 1: Okay, I think most people can identify with being the audience.
Speaker 2: Yeah, exactly. It's the biggest potential group. So I'm going
Speaker 2: to break it down into two sections, the black audience
Speaker 2: and the white audience. And I know there's more than
Speaker 2: black and white people in the audience, but just go
Speaker 2: with me here.
Speaker 1: Okay, black folks first, all right, and we can.
Speaker 2: Relate to this perspective more too, because before we were creating,
Speaker 2: we were consuming. But in terms of the black audience's
Speaker 2: role in the Black struggle industrial complex, I think it's twofold.
Speaker 2: The black audience is there to one appreciate the representation,
Speaker 2: no matter how blackluster or unthoughtful it is. And two,
Speaker 2: because white people often just copy black people's taste in
Speaker 2: the arts, the black audience is used as a shepherd
Speaker 2: for the highly sought after white audience.
Speaker 1: And when the black audience pushes back on certain media.
Speaker 1: We're accused of tearing each other.
Speaker 2: Down crabs in a barrel.
Speaker 1: I remember that happened with Queen and Slim.
Speaker 2: Oh my god. I think the black audience is taken
Speaker 2: for granted, like we have to support every single representative
Speaker 2: movie or book, or even if.
Speaker 1: It sucks, tell us how you really feel.
Speaker 2: Okay, not too much, not too much. Let me move
Speaker 2: on to the white audience members, who, as we saw
Speaker 2: in American fiction, are really coveted and catered to.
Speaker 1: Yes, like the reviewers and the white audience really pushed
Speaker 1: black struggle stories to the four. After Wanita read an
Speaker 1: excerpt from her book, a white woman is the first
Speaker 1: to offer a standing ovation.
Speaker 3: Y'all, Sharondon girl, you'd be pregnant again if I is Ray,
Speaker 3: Ray is gonna be a real father this time around.
Speaker 2: There's a strategic value behind what the white audience is doing.
Speaker 2: Similarly to the buyers, I think the white audience's reaction
Speaker 2: to these black struggle stories is treated as quirky or
Speaker 2: occurring by happenstance.
Speaker 1: Like they don't know any better.
Speaker 2: Yeah, but literally, the most folesh thing you could do
Speaker 2: is underestimate the whites and I think it's easier for
Speaker 2: folks to understand that with individual white people like Richard
Speaker 2: Nixon are the Koch Brothers. They're supporting a particular black
Speaker 2: vision over another one because the one they're supporting is
Speaker 2: more useful to them. For example, for example, Nixon supported
Speaker 2: black capitalism over socialism. He said in a speech, instead
Speaker 2: of government jobs and government housing and government welfare, that
Speaker 2: government uses its tax and credit policies to enlist in
Speaker 2: this battle the greatest engine of progress ever developed in
Speaker 2: the history of man American private enterprise. During the campaign,
Speaker 2: Nixon co opted black powers rhetoric of economic self determination
Speaker 2: to call for a segregated black economy. So while generations
Speaker 2: of white Americans gained wealth through the same government jobs
Speaker 2: and welfare, Nixon was now pointing Black America to the
Speaker 2: free market and essentially saying, hey, good luck. And he
Speaker 2: did that because it was useful to him. It steered
Speaker 2: the conversation away from radical thinking and radical narratives.
Speaker 1: And you're saying, why audiences are doing something similar, but
Speaker 1: as a.
Speaker 2: Mass yes, there's a collective intelligence white audience and says
Speaker 2: are exercising in the stories they're elevating, which tend to
Speaker 2: be more conservative, more escapist, and, in the case of
Speaker 2: a racier and American Fiction, more pathological. It's also a
Speaker 2: strategic intervention to steer the conversation away from radicalism, just
Speaker 2: like Nixon and the Koch Brothers, the Ford Foundation, the Rockefellers.
Speaker 2: So I think when we as creators are talking about
Speaker 2: what the black struggle industrial complex does, it's not asking
Speaker 2: us to be more black, because we're already black. It's
Speaker 2: asking us to be a type of black that absolves
Speaker 2: and liberates white audiences from any obligation.
Speaker 1: That reminds me of something else. The director of American
Speaker 1: Fiction said in that BBC interview. He said basically that
Speaker 1: it allows why audience members to say, quote, this depiction
Speaker 1: of race does not harm my self image because I'm
Speaker 1: not burning across on anybody's lawn, i don't own slaves,
Speaker 1: I'm not a racist, yep, wanting to be absolved. Hmm.
Speaker 2: We'll have more on the other side of this break.
Speaker 2: I do think that white audiences could like take away
Speaker 2: the wrong thing from the movie American Fiction, the book
Speaker 2: a rasure, and even this podcast episode, like they even
Speaker 2: be sitting there thinking like, well, since everything I'm doing
Speaker 2: is wrong. I'm just not going to support black art
Speaker 2: at all since I'm doing it wrong, you know what
Speaker 2: I'm saying, which I don't think is the right thing
Speaker 2: to do. But if I was in their shoes and like.
Speaker 1: You're giving them the much needed information that they always
Speaker 1: be asking for, child, what do I do?
Speaker 2: No? I mean, if I was in their shoes, I
Speaker 2: would be like, fuck y'all.
Speaker 1: Okay, truly, that's not the answer they want. You're not
Speaker 1: giving them the answer they want, you know what I.
Speaker 2: Mean, Because it's like, Okay, well, y'all said, y'all wanted
Speaker 2: us to support black people, and it's floor back of businesses,
Speaker 2: and we went and bought this book. And now you're
Speaker 2: saying we're doing that wrong. Like now you're saying that
Speaker 2: we're supporting this ghetto fiction that supports stereotypes, Like damn.
Speaker 1: I think the movie didn't focus as much on what
Speaker 1: the white people were actually saying about the book. In
Speaker 1: the movie, they touched on it a little bit when
Speaker 1: they were in the meeting. In the movie, they have
Speaker 1: a scene where they're doing these literary book awards and
Speaker 1: they have a cohortive people and it's like it's just
Speaker 1: Juanita and Thelonius are the only black people in the group,
Speaker 1: and it's like five or six people in the group.
Speaker 1: And they don't talk about it as much in the movie,
Speaker 1: but in the book they give a lot of the
Speaker 1: things that the white people are saying about Juanita's book
Speaker 1: and about fuck and they talk a little bit about
Speaker 1: it in the movie where they talk about the quotes
Speaker 1: that were in the magazines and newspaper articles that were
Speaker 1: saying Juanita's book is so raw and real and emotional.
Speaker 1: So the white people that were in the book, we're
Speaker 1: saying things like, this is the best black novel that
Speaker 1: I've read in the last however long.
Speaker 2: It's like it'll be taught in schools in thirty years.
Speaker 1: Yes, they were very complimentary of it. They praised it
Speaker 1: so highly, but they clearly, in the book and in
Speaker 1: the movie, really felt strongly about it being something that
Speaker 1: needed to be more widely read and definitely widely read
Speaker 1: by white audiences that they were the stand ins for.
Speaker 1: So in the end, they were the judges essentially and
Speaker 1: the gatekeepers for the images of black people that they
Speaker 1: thought should be disseminated widely. And while they were saying
Speaker 1: these things. They were completely ignoring what in the book
Speaker 1: Monk was saying. But in the movie what both Sintara
Speaker 1: aka Janita and Monk were saying. They were like, Oh,
Speaker 1: you're a black person with thoughts about how blackness should
Speaker 1: be in the book, you know.
Speaker 2: So, But I think it goes back to that like
Speaker 2: collective intelligence, Like there is an agenda to say that
Speaker 2: this poordly written book that was written in like one night,
Speaker 2: agree alcohol fueled night should be read by white and
Speaker 2: black and every other race students for the next thirty years.
Speaker 2: What you try to say about black folks.
Speaker 1: Yeah, was it one night or was it one week?
Speaker 1: I thought it was a week, he said.
Speaker 2: I thought he wrote it in one night.
Speaker 1: It might have been different in the movie in the book,
Speaker 1: but in the book, I feel like he said he
Speaker 1: did it one week to others.
Speaker 2: Either way, not very thoughtful. Yeah, you know what I'm saying.
Speaker 2: But yeah, I think that goes back to like there
Speaker 2: is an agenda. And even when like a black person
Speaker 2: who you say you respect because they wouldn't have been
Speaker 2: on this committee if they weren't respected writers, you say
Speaker 2: you respect them and respect their art. In their opinion,
Speaker 2: you're like nah, we got this, like we know what
Speaker 2: people should be reading, and we know what's the best
Speaker 2: black book of the century.
Speaker 1: Also, it being a fictional character that they're talking about
Speaker 1: allows them distance that somebody, a black person, sitting right
Speaker 1: in front of them doesn't allow them. And in a
Speaker 1: way for white people who are so used to operating
Speaker 1: in that way pretending black people are invisible or and
Speaker 1: they truly are if it's not pretending, sometimes black people
Speaker 1: really are invisible to them in so many ways. It's
Speaker 1: like you operate like that every day in life. I
Speaker 1: have definitely had experiences where white people treating me as
Speaker 1: invisible in places, so it's not hard for them to
Speaker 1: do that in a real room where it's like, in
Speaker 1: a way, they have more intimacy with the fictional characters
Speaker 1: because they live, breathe literary stuff, they are writers, so
Speaker 1: it's like easier for them to be in touch or
Speaker 1: in tune or ostensibly those things with this fictional black
Speaker 1: character who they could imagine more things upon as reading
Speaker 1: it than somebody who's sitting right in front of them,
Speaker 1: because they operate within white supremacy, because it's how they're
Speaker 1: used to treating black people in real life.
Speaker 2: Yeah.
Speaker 1: So to recap the anatomy of the black struggle industrial complex,
Speaker 1: we got the creators, the ones who push back against
Speaker 1: and the ones who lean into it. We have the buyers,
Speaker 1: the folks paying the creators and funding these stories, the agents,
Speaker 1: the middlemen between the creators and the audience, both black
Speaker 1: and white and beyond.
Speaker 2: You got it. And if you're looking for another movie
Speaker 2: that breaks the fourth wall on the black struggle industrial complex,
Speaker 2: I recommend watching Roda Blanks, the forty year old version.
Speaker 2: That's version not virgin. It's on Netflix.
Speaker 1: And with that, it's time for roll credits, the segment
Speaker 1: where we give credit to a person, place, or thing
Speaker 1: for the week. Katie, what's you given credit to this week?
Speaker 1: This week?
Speaker 2: I would like to give credit to clothes swapping. I'm
Speaker 2: in my not buy as much stuff bag, and it
Speaker 2: used to be like, whenever I thought I needed some
Speaker 2: piece of clothing, I would go buy it. But now
Speaker 2: I just ask somebody else, like do you have this?
Speaker 2: Can I wear it for this for this day? And
Speaker 2: sometimes I do? What would you like to give credit
Speaker 2: to this week?
Speaker 1: This week? I would like to give credit to incense
Speaker 1: because Katie, you know I like smells it smells make
Speaker 1: me feel really good. So like when I wake up
Speaker 1: in the morning, it's a ritual for me to turn
Speaker 1: on my essential oil diffusers and like my incense. And
Speaker 1: I don't have that many candles, so if anybody wants
Speaker 1: to give me any candles, you can. But I love smells,
Speaker 1: so they made me feel better. So that's what I
Speaker 1: want to give credit to this week.
Speaker 2: And with that, we will see you next week.
Speaker 1: Bye y'all, bye. On Theme is a production of iHeartRadio
Speaker 1: and Fairweather Friends Media. This episode was written by Eves
Speaker 1: Jeffco and Katie Mitchell.
Speaker 2: It was produced by Tari Harrison and edited in sound
Speaker 2: designed by Dylan Fagan.
Speaker 1: Follow us on Instagram at on Themeshow. You can also
Speaker 1: send us an email at Hello at on Theme dot Show.
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