Historically, particularly in entertainment, there are artists who through association and creative development, cross or race cross, and are “acceptable” or pulled into Black orbit and acceptance. Marlon Brando, Shelly Winters, many British artists—-Amy Winehouse, because they are authentic or oddball in a way that is authentic. What Black people are measuring when we look at White people is transparency and authenticity. Can we trust you? We often quiz each other on other White people as good, okay, problematic. There’s a whole sub-communication going on about White throughout POC.
A fellow student asked me about Pulp Fiction several years ago, worried that he was White and was aligning to a deeper racism by so thoroughly enjoying the film. I had enjoyed it. But he was very specific about how the rampant use of the word nigger and the social and ideological issues of race and class being problematic, putting him at a dissonance to enjoying the form but concerned about the enjoyment of such a form. He was also worried about how I would perceive him as he was White.
At a certain point, a certain sphere of people, Black people we see art, authenticity—-did you get it right? Frank Sinatra in The Man With the Golden Arm. It’s no coincidence that the intersection of jazz/music—-emotionality art—-is where we find and accept White people who are truly transparent, and again, authentic.
![Jackie Brown [Blu-ray]](https://images-na.ssl-images-amazon.com/images/I/814unbAuOKL._SX342_.jpg)
Quentin is an oddball. Not in a bad way. But you can see he’s a brainiac, he’s not a classically handsome man, he grew up poor, he immersed himself in shitty video store clerking job and absorbed it as autodidact education in filmmaking then hustled his way to success. He even has an absentia father who showed up when he hit it big. He’s the epitome of a hustling nigger. Or better yet someone who but for melanin has experienced life similar to a Black man in America. Black people can see that authenticity, probably more in person but definitely in his films.
My personal favorite is Jackie Brown. I relate too much to Jackie Brown and I have vague memories of Pam Grier in her first heyday and she looks like family members. I would say it’s one of my Top 10 films, if not in the 5. But what Tarantino did was he got what it means to be a Jackie brown, twisting it from Elmore Leonard’s original male, White character into the struggle of a Black woman—-having to negotiate a life of good, bad and no choices. Black people know that Jackie Brown, feel that Jackie Brown. So when language is tossed around, we know what would authentically flow in those Black people. We also know, because Street Life is layered into the Black American Experience know that world is not sanitized of complex usages of words, phrases, context, and meaning.
So when we see a film created by a White guy that so deftly pulls that all together, we recognize real. He gets it. He may be lighter skinned than us but he knows some of the essences of those worlds and therefore of Black people through not just observation. This is what White people don’t understand—-we can tell which one of you are authentic and not. We often politely don’t even bother to entertain it (cough—-SuperBowl Justin Timberlake cough what the fuck was that whole Prince thing—-I didn’t even watch it once I saw a curtain with an image. I didn’t watch it because I respect prince too much to entertain some tomfoolery.) because there’s appropriation and then there’s authenticity.
Yes, some White people have earned and get a pass. I would also think other Black people, like we commonly pass along validation of good or bad, help to validate him as okay. So if Samuel L. Jackson who will not tolerate a motherfucker and Pam Grier who will hurt a motherfucker, say he’s a cool, living, real motherfucker—-he’s good.
He might be problematic in a racialized context but he’s invited to the party and we’re not going to freak out when he uses the word nigger because we’re going to know that he knows context, tone, a situation that dictate the meaning of the word. Which is very interesting because there aren’t many English words that are so flexible to be both loving, damning and inflammatory. The word nigger is a lot of the appellation or questionability around his identity, creativity, etc..
Smile, Kyle
KylePhoenixShow@gmail.com
KylePhoenixShow@gmail.com
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