Black women are supposed to relate to and admire these two-dimensional characters, but in reality their lives are multi-dimensional: they’re real people who face obstacles outside of combating racism. Most black girls have gained enough life experience by adolescence to understand that “black girls are pretty, too” and “racism is wrong.” What we’re still grappling with is that being a black girl is still really hard because while we may believe those messages, the people we interact with on a daily basis don’t necessarily understand or believe those messages. And, of course, we are dealing with that racism at the same time that we deal with the everyday problems any other complicated person does.
Detroit, directed by Kathryn Bigelow, takes place in the midst of the infamous 12th Street riot, which was sparked after the police raided an unlicensed club for African-American veterans in 1967....
Ava DuVernay has never been afraid to bring issues like race, the unjust U.S. “justice” system, mass incarceration, and the criminalization of African-Americans and other PoC to the forefront of her films. From the Oscar-winning film Selma to the highly acclaimed 2016 Netflix documentary 13th, DuVernay has examined how the criminal justice system is actively used as an oppressive tactic to repress and discriminate against the Black population....