Shomari Kirkwood Profile picture
Sep 21, 2020 7 tweets 2 min read Read on X
If there's one thing I appreciate about #LovecraftCountry it's that it has probably on of the most interesting depictions of whiteness on screen currently. Especially as I find it contrasted against Girls which I'm still currently watching.
I'm catching up at the moment, but I enjoy the fact that Ruby's episode demonstrated how white folks existence is a time bomb when they're around black people. With or without or involvement they can just cause our deaths.
As well as the parts where, and we see this more and more these days, that white people so deeply want to get as close to blackness as possible. Claim it in some way if possible.
And what white folks don't get is that black people generally don't want to be white. What Ruby wanted wasn't to be white but to have a humanity unfettered by anything but herself. We all want that in life ultimately.
In this sense whiteness wasn't an aspirational goal, but a tool to climb. Though there is something to be stated about how much Ruby defeats herself by fixating on her blackness as a barrier triggered by folks perceptions of her.
This is differed by how many white women want to be men for the ultimate power of being a white man. It's not to be free necessarily but to have greater control over their ability to control. Which is characterized by Christina.
The other thing I just fucking love with Christina's character is how often her plots are complicated because she fundamentally doesn't understand black people. All she can do is understand her power and white power over them.

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More from @MxOberon

Sep 28, 2020
Just thinking about our fascination in American fantasy about people being from special lineages, secret princes, etc. And how as we push against that it's worth looking at the different ways this trope can exist in subversive and conservative wats
The main way I'd point this out is: there are stories where the importance is in the blood and stories where the importance is on your ancestors and whike similar those are quite different.
In the former case we have what's essentially eugenics. Due to ypur genes you matter. There was no world in which you wouldn't matter, and in a world born out of manifest destiny and white supremacy this concept is really dangerous.
Read 30 tweets
Sep 27, 2020
So I finally finished High & Low:The Movie. It was a great time, and there's a lot to digest about it. I think the major thing on my mind rn is how it looks when asians (Japanese in this film) create a world of gangs as compared to Americans.
This largely a reactive thought as I think about a tweet made yesterday on the orientalist nature of Asian gangs in American works. The emphasis on "honor", dragon iconography, traditional motifs, swords over guns, etc.
And what High & Low demonstrates is just how glaringly orientalist this image is. Since out of the many gangs in its setting you have some that look like pretty boy hosts, high school delinquents, visual key parkour enthusiasts, and SOOOOOO much black influence.
Read 13 tweets
Sep 24, 2020
I am due to learn more about theories of harm reduction, but I really want to do so reading texts by black and indigenous women.
In part cause one thing I want to learn how to resolve in myself and grow is to understand where violence is placed in these models. Cause I understand that a major principle is that the state can't and shouldn't have tools of violence in anyway.
Though what happens when a community decides that violence is necessary. Say, in the case of deciding to just off some cops that slew a black woman in her sleep.
Read 8 tweets
Sep 22, 2020
So I just started up How to Make It in America (taking a break from Girls), and immediately this show screams New York in a way Girls doesn't.
Part of it stems from how our characters are living in realistic apartments, they're hustling, and the City has an energy to it that screams fashion, hip-hop, and a Neverending hustle.
Which immediately draws difference between Girls where all the characters have aspirations but they have no drive or hustle.
Read 5 tweets
Sep 22, 2020
To do a short thread on Miss Sherlock for a second. It is some amazingly fun television, and makes the greatest case for what's fun about the episodic format.
The ability to put in thirty minutes and get a really rewarding mystery that has an actual resolution and payoff(something lacking from so many serialized dramas) is great.
Plus, each case is a good time because you can get very different tones easily. One episode is a straight up murder mystery, another starts as simple vandalism to become an art world conspiracy, and I just finished one with a missing bride.
Read 10 tweets
Sep 21, 2020
Though I’d definitely say rn Girls is in line with my theory. Since the way the show embodies whiteness in New York is largely inauthentic to NYC. Unlike Sex and the City where the characters are of certain class and status in Manhattan that is overwhelmingly white
The characters in girls are just not at that point. Where they are in their lives should have them engaging with so many PoC it’s not funny.but in Girls PoC only emerge to act as props for the characters to just be white too.
Then insofar as both shows represent New York City, Girls is not in New York. It feels so disconnected to the city beyond the character’s fascination with it in their Rent-addled imagination. In this way the show, much like the cast, engages in blatant gentrification.
Read 6 tweets

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