Too Much Black Trauma Media?

A lot, a lot, a lot to say on this topic.

This wasn't the intended next video admittedly, but with all the polls and impromptu videos and discussion I've been driving around it, it's kind of willed me towards the idea of making a proper video about the subject.

I don't want to reveal too much just yet, but I'll certainly say I understand a lot of aspects of the perspective, despite disagreeing with the overarching narrative that there needs to be an absence of "politics" in black media/entertainment.

Some fun aspects and joke stuff I've been working on with the video are here.

Sometimes it feels like "black trauma" as it were, is made into a spectal for white audiences to go "what a great story........ anyway" like our lives are just narratives to tell fictional stories. So moved by commercial representations of real suffering, as opposed to the real stories and experiences of black people.

While on the contrary, I don't believe that this inherently means the media should go away. It feels as though overexposure has created a situation where the public feels apathy towards black issues and such.

Alongside this, a common rhetort I hear to this is this idea that "they're not saying anything but 'it is what it is' so we should stop talking about it. This is very similar to how I feel to the brandishing of 'conscious' media and material I expressed in the Operation Exodus, in which this relative and wholly subjective standard of "saying something" is imposed on all forms of media.

To me, J Cole says nothing. But, to someone else he's spitting.

To some, Jay Z is spitting knowledge on 4:44, but to me, he's (mostly) talking crap. 

But, this self enforced relative standard of "consciousness" is playing a role in how we perceive these works. Partially because "consciousness" has been slightly commercialised in its branding and aesthetic, but also because it has created this disconnect from audiences being able to distinguish what is real to them and what is societally sold as 'real.'

I think of movies like 'Love, Beats, Rhymes' which really perpetuate the "real music" aesthetic and principles. It's a very complicated rabbit hole. Especially when we get into the sheer amount of black political media that we give passes on the premise that they're "funny" or "satire" implying that the only way in which black systemic issues can be addressed is if we're making jokes about black people being shot, as opposed to attempting to tell stories around them.

It's a nuanced subject, but one that I think deserves a proper video for itself.

My bad for rambling. More stuff soon.