{"id":2503,"date":"2019-01-31T15:54:35","date_gmt":"2019-01-31T15:54:35","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/endcrawl.com\/blog\/?p=2503"},"modified":"2019-05-02T13:48:08","modified_gmt":"2019-05-02T13:48:08","slug":"visualizing-black-love","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/endcrawl.com\/blog\/visualizing-black-love\/","title":{"rendered":"Visualizing Black Love"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Three months after the Supreme Court banned segregation in public schools, jazz trumpeter Louis Armstrong and new wife, Lucille, graced the cover of the August 1954 issue of <\/span><i><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Ebony<\/span><\/i><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">, under a headline doubling as the title for Armstrong\u2019s op-ed, \u201cWhy I Like Dark Women\u201d.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">The title sticks to Margo Jefferson like aged honey. <a href=\"https:\/\/www.goodreads.com\/book\/show\/24040176-negroland\">In her memoir <strong><em>Negroland<\/em><\/strong><\/a><\/span><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">, the tenured New York Times critic remembers Lucille as \u201cchipper and chubby and dark of hue, sure of her dimples, sure of herself.\u201d She recalls her own immediate thoughts: \u201cI found the title embarrassing then; it wasn\u2019t the proclaimed taste of the world I knew\u2026\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">At the time, a seven-year-old Jefferson could hardly imagine dark folks in love. She could not formulate a normalcy that included dark faces smiling boldly and lovingly into each others eyes. Even with her proximity to Blackness, the conditioning of a racist, classist country internalized anti-Blackness when it came to love.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Jefferson connects these two events \u2014 integration and public display of dark affection \u2014 revealing the dearth of imagination both on her own part and that of the society around her that ended up betraying the goal of integration. White and well-to-do Black folks such as those in Jefferson&#8217;s orbit would sneer at the prospect of a love of very dark skin. <\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">The same racial triteness compelled photographer Gillian Laub to snap the students of Montgomery High School in 2009,<\/span><a href=\"https:\/\/www.nytimes.com\/2009\/05\/24\/magazine\/24prom-t.html?mtrref=www.google.com&amp;gwh=A63136DEA46633CB5E7967E5A6CCB9F7&amp;gwt=pay\"> <span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">where a segregated prom tradition continued in the still-ebbing wake of Jim Crow<\/span><\/a><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Laub\u2019s return to Georgia and a now-integrated prom at Montgomery High School six years later is the subject of the 2015 documentary <\/span><b><i>Southern Rites<\/i><\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">, in which pageantry is sacrificed for the complex matters of race, blood, and banal conceptions of love.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><iframe loading=\"lazy\" width=\"500\" height=\"281\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/pg9qpUIS0rg?feature=oembed\" frameborder=\"0\" allow=\"accelerometer; autoplay; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture\" allowfullscreen><\/iframe><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Laub\u2019s presence in Montgomery creates much consternation amongst the locals, a result of the disruption caused by her 2009 photo essay. Her presentation of Black love harkens back to the imperial, anthropological origins of film. It is a stark contrast to other films \u2014 namely <\/span><b><i>Moonlight<\/i><\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">, <\/span><b><i>Mudbound<\/i><\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">, and <\/span><b><i>The Inevitable Defeat of Mister and Pete<\/i><\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> \u2014 that hit the Adult Contemporary Register.<\/span><\/p>\n<p>[Ed. Note: <em>Southern Rites,\u00a0<\/em><em>Moonlight, Mudbound,<\/em>\u00a0and <em>The Inevitable Defeat of Mister and Pete\u00a0<\/em>used\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/endcrawl.com\"><strong>Endcrawl<\/strong><\/a>, which publishes this site.]<\/p>\n<h4>CAN we show Black love?<\/h4>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">The artist decides if Black love will taste like blood or sweet tea, but the artist is also a channel for the arrhythmic notes of the society in which they\u2019re bred, a communicator of their own conditioning; and the American condition is anti-Blackness.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Laub\u2019s 2015 film begins as a sign of progress for integrated love, and it ends that way. Numerous portraits of prom-going interracial couples blast across the film\u2019s final moments. Brace-faced smiles atop pearls draped across lithe necks. White women in olive-green evening gowns clutching the hands of their black dates, awaiting the apotheosis of their young lives. Look here and see: dark women huddled together, the blast of cellphone flash reflecting in effulgent eyes, teeth, and glossy skin.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Images of fleeting joy in the wake of a murderous White supremacy that took the life of one of their own \u2014 a young man named Justin Patterson. Prom night is the promise of futurity in the face of all the things that seek to wring love from the bones of black victims.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Early in the film, Laub talks to high school senior Keyke Burns, who calls Patterson her \u201cfirst love\u201d. Burns\u2019s classmate Jay Sneed was Patterson\u2019s best friend, and when he speaks of him, emotion wells deep in his face. What happened to Patterson haunts the interviewees; they speak of his death as a passing when in actuality it was theft \u2014 a murder.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Laub interviews Norman Neesmith, the man who shot Patterson in the back with a .22 pistol after the teenager was invited into his home by his adopted black daughter, Danielle. Before the film reveals that he\u2019s killed what he himself described in the 911 call as &#8220;just a black boy\u201d, Neesmith uses a tree to describe the racism in Montgomery County. \u201cWe needa get to the root of the problem\u201d, he snorts, sitting on his porch.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">What the root is, we do not ever really find out. It\u2019s one of Laub\u2019s missed opportunities to interrogate Whiteness outside of the purview of \u201cprogressive\u201d politics. If showing Black love is a possibility \u2014 and Neesmith believes he <\/span><i><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">is<\/span><\/i><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> showing love to his daughter in this moment \u2014 it begs an interrogation.<\/span><\/p>\n<h4>Can WE\u00a0show Black love?<\/h4>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Laub\u2019s eye and Neesmith\u2019s reasoning present the question of who exactly can show Black love.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">In 2017, Barry Jenkins\u2019 <\/span><i><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Moonlight <\/span><\/i><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">gave audiences Black love in deft realism: The story of how a young, dark boy named Chiron (played by Alex Hibbert as a child and Ashton Sanders as a teen) is told of his queerness, how he shutters himself in quietude, and learns his body is allowed to experience pleasure, stands as one of the clearest examples of Black love\u2019s multifaceted qualities.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><iframe loading=\"lazy\" width=\"500\" height=\"281\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/9NJj12tJzqc?feature=oembed\" frameborder=\"0\" allow=\"accelerometer; autoplay; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture\" allowfullscreen><\/iframe><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Chiron\u2019s mother (Naomie Harris) is a struggling addict whose disdain for Chiron is felt before it is ever seen. Her love is born of poverty, loneliness, and apathy, and it\u2019s implied that Chiron is the symbol of her degradation.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Neesmith had little choice in adopting Danielle. His niece, Danielle\u2019s mother, left her at his doorstep early one morning, and the two have been intertwined ever since. But the decision to take a child in and the decision to love that child are two completely different choices.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Regardless of whether Neesmith loves Danielle, loving one person doesn\u2019t guarantee a love for Black people. Laub delineates the two, juxtaposing conversations about Danielle and the populace at large against one another. Danielle might be the only Black person Neesmith regularly comes in contact with.<\/span><\/p>\n<h4>Can we SHOW Black love?<\/h4>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">The separation between <\/span><i><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Moonlight <\/span><\/i><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">and <\/span><i><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Southern Rites<\/span><\/i><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> is found not only in genre but in the movements of its storytellers. Jenkins\u2019s purpose bleeds into careful cinematography, the lighting, the camera as it closes in on the faces of its characters over the course of this story.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">For Laub, the purpose is excavation. To tell the story of a backward 21st century town conditioned by \u201cold\u201d prejudices. Who can show Black love absent imperialism? Who can show Black love in a future that is already here?<\/span><\/p>\n<h4>Can we show BLACK love?<\/h4>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">The portrayals seem out of time. Showing Black love means seeing into a terrifying future for believers in the religion of Whiteness. <\/span><i>Mudbound<\/i><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">, the masterful film by Dee Rees, complicates the idea of depicting Black love by subverting our notions of who is able to show it: Two families, one white, one black, living in rural Mississippi just after WWI, wherein the traumas of poverty wrap up their destinies with one another.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><iframe loading=\"lazy\" width=\"500\" height=\"281\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/vAZWhFI9lLQ?feature=oembed\" frameborder=\"0\" allow=\"accelerometer; autoplay; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture\" allowfullscreen><\/iframe><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">A friendship develops when the two families&#8217; eldest sons (Garrett Hedlund and Jason Mitchell) return from war, the realities of battle having linked them together. <\/span><i><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Mudbound<\/span><\/i><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> fudges historicities by conjoining the plight of racial opposites, and unlike other films that attempt to do this (I\u2019m looking at you <\/span><b><i>Green Book<\/i><\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">), Rees doesn\u2019t let a racist white family off the hook. She reveals that the distribution of resources is the root of racial order. For Rees, the most meaningful way to show Black love is to show community, through shared experience and accountability.<\/span><\/p>\n<h4>Can we show Black LOVE?<\/h4>\n<p><i><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">The Inevitable Defeat of Mister and Pete <\/span><\/i><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">thinks about love in absence. When their mothers are taken from them at an early age, two young boys \u2014 Mister (Skylar Brooks) and Pete (Ethan Dizon) \u2014 are forced to grow up alone. Their mothers are prostitutes, forced into a position of \u201cloving\u201d men who \u201cown\u201d them for a night. The boys come together to survive beatings, run-ins with police, and starvation, all while learning to live through one another\u2019s pain.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><iframe loading=\"lazy\" width=\"500\" height=\"281\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/yUBnTs3z5jI?feature=oembed\" frameborder=\"0\" allow=\"accelerometer; autoplay; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture\" allowfullscreen><\/iframe><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">These ills come to a head when a malnourished Mister \u2014 just another black boy \u2014 is chased by the police after being accused of theft by a bully. Mister is apprehended and disappears.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Pete, on the other hand, is later seen documenting the story of their friendship. The film\u2019s ending implies that the story will live forever in the film\u2019s narrative. Is this love. Is it a comeuppance? It\u2019s hard to tell. But we do know care was involved. A care that was sympathetic. A care that Norman Neesmith can never show.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">When I think of Black love, I often return to James Baldwin. Not the simplicity of <\/span><strong><i>Beale Street<\/i><\/strong><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> but the brutal, thrilling, and atmospheric passages of his <a href=\"https:\/\/www.goodreads.com\/book\/show\/38474.Another_Country\">1962 novel <em><strong>Another Country<\/strong><\/em><\/a><\/span><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">, wherein a poor, embattled musician named Rufus struggles to build community in 1950\u2019s Harlem.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">I think of blood in Rufus\u2019 mouth when he gets beaten at a bar after an argument with a white woman, of Vivaldi \u2014 a white man and Rufus\u2019 only friend \u2014 carrying him home, because Rufus couldn\u2019t go to the hospital for fear of retaliation.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">I think of Vivaldi in a relationship with that very woman signaling the underlying hate he has for Rufus. It is upon this hinge of love and internalized hate that the complexity of Black love pivots. Chiron\u2019s mother loved him and hated him the same. The families in <\/span><i><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Mudbound<\/span><\/i><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> grew such a disdain for one another despite the fact that they would forever be close.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">In this country, the question of Black love is explicitly articulated through mass media\u00a0\u2014 whether one can actually see it or not\u00a0\u2014 in the written word, on the cover of <\/span><i><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Ebony<\/span><\/i><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">, on screens large and small. The charge then for the film industry isn\u2019t for \u201cmore diversity&#8221;, because diversity was and always has been the reality of our time. What matters now is a meaningful reflection, one that captures the verve, ebullience, and singular journey towards love for Black and Brown people. Appreciation for that struggle doesn\u2019t just happen. It\u2019s won, taught, and fought for\u00a0\u2014 and if the industry is willing to listen, the screen can be the best teacher.<\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Love comes in all colors \u2014 but the darkest ones are the hardest to see.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":8,"featured_media":2536,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[32,3],"tags":[110,112,114,108,115,109,111,107,113],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/endcrawl.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2503"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/endcrawl.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/endcrawl.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/endcrawl.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/8"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/endcrawl.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2503"}],"version-history":[{"count":28,"href":"http:\/\/endcrawl.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2503\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2548,"href":"http:\/\/endcrawl.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2503\/revisions\/2548"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/endcrawl.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2536"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/endcrawl.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2503"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/endcrawl.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2503"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/endcrawl.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2503"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}