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my few thoughts on that judas and the black messiah movie & then Iâm never talking about it again. A thread: for a lot of people their singular act of âactivismâ is making a film or a song, or a poem that exploits Black death and only has one purpose which is consumerism.
To make money off of the stories of people who detested capitalism, to make films on revolutionaries theyâve never read up on, because they know itâs something that will sell. they are activists for profit, for self gratification, not for the actual healing of our people.
Itâs easy to sit & write a script that excruciatingly drains the humanity out of characters, to write a 16 bar on what you think abolition is, to write a poem drenched in respectability politics, but how many of these ârevolutionary artistsâ do you see on the front lines?
How many of these actors have you seen engaged in discourse before they got their role? All of the artists on these soundtracks who beat on black women, who are homophobic, who are transphobic, who are colorist,
but this is the music thatâs being played after a scene of Fred Hampton speaking. black people just endured a horrific summer on top of generations of past ones, and weâre still seeing black trauma commercialized and so easily digestible for others. if your films arenât including
people who are actively in this fight, if your films are completely absent of our voices, of YOUTH, the whole project is a disservice to us, to those due to systemic devices arenât in the position to properly learn this information themselves, to a future generation that will
come across it. The only thing it is servicing, is your ego. Itâs nothing but misinformation & the continuous spread of the notion that nothing has changed, & that thereâs no hope in progression ever happening.
A lot of deplatforming needs to happen. the wrong people are in these industries, the wrong people are TRYING to depict Black life in all mediums of media. Judas and the Black Messiah had a 26 million dollar budget.
When we have endless conversations about what investment in black lives actually looks like, we talk about just how much can be done with just an 8th of that budget, let alone the whole thing. I would rather be able to continue the mutual aid work thatâs been happening within the
city, art programs to be funded, people who are houseless to be put in shelters, or starting up another breakfast program for kids who arenât able to eat anymore in the mornings with CPS being remote, but instead we get a movie. How is that saving lives?
How many more movies, & poems, & songs that will profit off of black misery, but then forget to worry about the after care? The revolution will not be televised; it canât be. it damn sure wonât be palatable, & the narrative will no longer rest in the hands of those
who not only donât do the work thatâs needed, but donât actually care about Black lives.
