Slave Play, Interracial Relationships and "Musical Obsession Disorder."

I have not been to see a movie about slavery since I went to see the theatrical release of Django Unchained (2013). Although I liked the movie, the experience of seeing it at the Hackney Picturehouse surrounded by white people reminded me of being a child in a classroom, surrounded by white people. The feeling of learning about my history but unable to process it, because I was too preoccupied with what the white people around me were thinking and feeling. And in turn how they were thinking and feeling about me.

Sitting in class being taught a history lesson where the teacher is unintentionally reminding everyone that regardless of my higher grades, I was once (?) a lower caste would make my back and arms prickle. In the cinema years later for Django Unchained, I didn't quite prickle - I must have repressed that somatic response - but instead I felt I had to laugh. Laugh along with everyone in the cinema to Tarantino's take on history, instead of crying with the mixture of anger, sadness and shame.

That very day, I decided I wouldn't relive the trauma of seeing Black oppression over and over again through stories of enslaved people told primarily by white artists. Since I first watched the original Roots (1977) series at about 9 or 10 years old I've seen every major film or tv show about this heinous 400 year period and I decided I had seen enough. I get it. No more pls.

I even held firm when 12 Years a Slave (2014) was released just a year later because despite it being made by Black artist Steve McQueen, rules are rules.

(When I was a teenager I have a vague memory of a Steve McQueen artwork of a slave ship where you walked through a tunnel and heard the clanging and the ocean and I am unnerved by it to this day. Also random: he photographed my son for his Year 3 school photo series!)

But you can't really escape it can you? During a bout of depression I decided to watch a Nina Simone documentary immediately followed by 13th (2016) and I remember I couldn't look at white men for three weeks. I was seething. It was the first time I realised what it meant to be truly angry. Ava Duvernay's documentary draws a through line from slavery to the prison industrial complex today and how a series of legal, corporate and political events continues to effect the inequality in America. It does precisely what a documentary is meant to do which is tell a story of history from an alternative point of view. This is the type of learning I like…

Did you know → this event happened a long time ago → which through a series of covert and intentional events by the patriarchy → still impacts you today.

Which is why I was excited to see Slave Play. I was interested to see how Jeremy O.Harris had drawn the through line of slavery to sex and interracial relationships. I broke my rule on slave related content because he's Black, queer and a Gemini, and it's about time we had a fresh take.

I've been fascinated by the interracial dynamic for several reasons...