1) I have not yet seen the film.
2) I write a version of this essay every decade.
3) I am a fan of Cynthia Erivo's work. Her art: her voice and demand of character are awe-inspiring. She is beautiful. I do not know her personally.
CLASSISM DISGUISED AS CULTURAL CONFLICT
When I was about twelve, living in Houston at the height of the Rockets’ dominance, a boy asked me if I was related to Hakeem Olajuwon. He wasn’t trying to be rude. This was Texas in the 90s, and I was probably the first African he had met. I didn’t have the language for it then, but that moment mirrored a larger, more insidious historical context—a deep miseducation about Africa and Africans, paired with a narrow, flattened lens through which Blackness itself was viewed, especially in a small Texan town. For me, it would only be the first of many moments that underscored what it meant to be African in America.
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