Your Anti-Blackness Is Showing

Feb 17, 2023

As someone who has come to dread the coinciding of Black History Month and the usually problematic February takes on the romance genre, this week (Feb 13-19, 2023) has been particularly exhaustive. As Black Americans continue to feel the oppressive weight of Black deaths at the hands of policing agents (remember, the only color that matters when talking about policing is blue), I wasn't certain what this musing would cover. As usual, folks provide inspiration.

Musing 1: Solidarity

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This musing is inspired by a Twitter moment. A US Black person commented on the use of "Say Her Name" in the case of deadnaming a murdered white person in the UK. Given the rampant transphobia in the US and the UK, my musing seeks not to diminish the violence leveled at human beings. I want to muse on the lack of nuance—political, cultural, and historical—in the use of the phrase. Specifically, I want non-US folk I follow to understand why a person’s tweet about "intellectual property" with respect to the phrase is misguided and demonstrates an unwillingness to recognize the deeply embedded anti-Blackness in the tweeter's argument and call for solidarity.

Ignoring the specificity for the emergence of "Say Her Name" or "Say His Name" and Black Americans' determination to keep a spotlight on the extraordinary assault on Black people and communities by the US policing institutions is egregious. The phrases speak to the ability of those institutions to murder with impunity and go unscathed to rinse and repeat. The phrases signify a community's refusal to accept the invisibility of each of those deaths. The words are a challenge to white people, not about white people. The phrases roar out the systemic anti-Blackness that results in a near-daily death by the policing apparatus in the United States, in small towns, urban areas, rural lands, in the missing. The phrases are never about a single individual but a mournful elegy about those slaughtered by the police who are often not held accountable—especially white police. Remember, in the United States the only color police “value” is blue.

Thus to speak of solidarity yet dismiss the concerns of US Black people about the use of “Say Her Name” or “Say His Name” to reference a white person’s death reflects not just an indifference to the struggle against anti-Black racism/colorism (and a lack of understanding of how colorism works within non-white communities to foster deep-seated anti-Blackness thinking), but, seriously people, a failure of inward self-reflection. In the end, for there to be solidarity one must begin with respect, listening, de-centering one’s ego, and a belief that sovereign subjectivity only works for a community as a whole when we recognize those communities and their struggles as being greater than our individual biases. Until then, no one is free.

Fini

Musing #2  “Damn, Shonda and Julie, back at it again with the colorism.”

What do these two musings have in common, readers might ask? Probably not a lot, but musing is mental meandering and it's what my Aquarius brain does so well.

A visual:

(So much could be written about the decision-making that went into the image on the left. I don’t the spoons any longer to deal with problematic repesentations of Black peoples on romance books. I’ll leave it to someone else with spoons still in the drawer.)

Since Shondaland decided to colorize the pristine whiteness of Julia Quinn's Bridgerton series, the publisher reissued the series with new covers, some colorized. Despite my best efforts to avoid the Netflix BS, it’s almost impossible to escape since I write romance and write about romance and race.

If the Rimes/Quinn “Bridgerton” empire wasn’t already monetized enough, the announcement of a book authored by both, Queen Charlotte, will hit bookstores and platforms on May 9, 2023 tips the scales. This book publication coincides with the Netflix production scheduled for May 4th (irony). Already, fans of Quinn's books and the Netflix series are organizing watch parties, Twitter TL tweets, and pre-ordering their copies without thought to the racism/colorism that trails behind the books and the Netflix series.

In Twitter threads, I and other romance authors/readers have remarked on JQ's dismissive words about Black peoples (publicly and on the page). A number of Black romance readers (and authors who are readers) have expressed our dismay that Black-authored historical romance has no place in Shondaland. We recognize the insidious invisible hand of racial capitalism at work (cater to a white gaze and thou will’st be rewarded handsomely). Yet, given that white/Anglocentric historical romance consumers have their Bridgerton, why doesn’t a Black woman powerhouse in the film/streaming service delivery of historical romance take a bolder step? Why not select a historical romance that centers Black romance, characters, and communities? Is it a matter of wealth and class? We got you covered. Is it a matter of love? We got you covered. Is it a question of attracting an audience? Oh baby, Black folk got you covered. I'm seriously baffled, as I’m sure other romance readers of color are, by Shondaland’s inattentiveness to Black-authored historical romance novels.

Perhaps, one day, an intrepid filmmaker with capital will bring to life the historical romances that abound, both as lived experiences and in fiction, within African/Black diasporic communities inside and outside European nation-states. Representations that don't start from an ideology of "Black trauma" but in "Black love" because the historical evidence is there. 'Tis possible. One need only undertake the responsibility to do the work. It's not that difficult.

I’m done with February 2023.

(ps: Since I’m the least likely Black romance author to get a 7-figure movie deal on my historical romances, feel free to support Elysabeth Grace’s romance writing on Ko-Fi (Ko-fi.com/elysabethgrace1) or www.elysabethgrace.com. Thanks, Margo)

MargoH's Musings is a reader-supported publication. To receive new posts and support my work, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber.

© 2024 Margo Hendricks