100 Time February 15/February 22, 2021
people. The execs, of course, never tell me straight
up to make my project more appealing to white
folks. Instead they ask, for example, if I can “in-
corporate more levity to let in a broader audience.”
The most common note I receive to whitewash my
art is to “make the main character more likable.”
In other words: reduce her confidence, edge and
defiance, and inflate her gushy kindness and vul-
nerability. It’s a way of softening Black characters
to fit preapproved roles, in a world where white
characters can be real, cunning and cutthroat.
Tony Soprano, Cersei Lannister and Walter White
were kind and vulnerable at times. But their resil-
ience and arrogance made them dynamic and even
relatable. Why shouldn’t the same apply for my
characters?
How did we get Here, to this moment of con-
flicted opportunity for Black creators? There’s no
one answer—it’s a blend of factors. One reality is
that, in sports and music, Black athletes and artists
have made boatloads of money for white execu-
tives for decades. Why wouldn’t anyone in the en-
tertainment industry put their chips on Black? An-
other is the leverage Black creators have been able
to build, thanks to technologies like smartphones
and platforms like YouTube, Vimeo, TikTok, Twit-
ter and Insta gram. Those tools have made content
creation and distribution more accessible for Black
writers and filmmakers so they can prove their
work comes with a built-in audience before going
to corporations for buy-in. A third reason, though
cynical, could be the high volume of clicks and
views generated by traumatizing videos of our bru-
talization by police and neighbors. Hollywood has
been profiting on stories of Black suffering since
the entertainment industry began. But these viral
videos might, subconsciously or overtly, be leading
media executives to lean toward producing more of
that content. And yet another factor, one that feels
particularly current, is those same executives feel-
ing the pressure of the moment to perform inclu-
sion. Or maybe they just genuinely want to support
our work. Maybe.
Regardless of why, there is a feeding frenzy now
for Black creatives, and we need to move fast. Be-
cause moments pass. A few weeks ago, a family
friend in her 60s called me. She’s seen this cycle
before. She called to tell me she was doing her best
to get her employer to buy my book in bulk while
the company was working to show efforts to edu-
cate its employees on Black experiences. As our
phone call concluded, she warned, “Hurry up and
send me the preorder link, young Chad. You know
this window won’t be open for long.” I believe her.
It feels like every 10 to 15 years, the floodgates of
Black opportunity open. We’re trendy once per de-
cade like baggy pants, tie-dye and the actual color
black. Michael Jordan, Whitney Houston, Mariah
Carey and Eddie Murphy defined international
pop culture in the early ’90s while the L.A. riots
simmered. In 2008, Barack Obama was elected as
the first African- American President of the United
States two years before Kanye West’s My Beautiful
Dark Twisted Fantasy announced hip-hop’s transi-
tion from an important Black musical genre to the
defining sound of the early 21st century.
Each of these moments seemed primed to so-
lidify opportunities for Black creators and per-
manently elevate conversations about equality in
our country. Instead we got Donald Trump as our
President. The current moment of opportunity forThe Black Renaissance ESSAY