In 2019, Liu Yifei, the actress who plays Mulan in the recently released remake, make a social media statement standing with Hong Kong police. The same police who are brutalizing and rounding up protesters outside of protocol, and who have received numerous complaints about arresting citizens without warrants or providing identification, and unnecessarily harming and endangering civilian lives.

This might be a harsh thing to say, but perhaps black folks making black films isn’t enough? The black stories that we deserve are thoughtful, deliberate (and maybe, perhaps, hopeful) ones that call us to action, bring our gaze to injustice, and carve a path out of it for us. If we can’t give ourselves justice in our own fiction, then where will we find it? (SPOILERS!! BEWARE!!)

There’s been an ongoing conversation about ‘political correctness’ and ‘cancel culture’ ‘killing comedy’. The fact that all of those phrases kind of had to exist in quotes is telling, to me, but I want to examine it just a bit further. The comment by comedians and those who enjoy comedy worldwide is that they should have the unaffected right to do what they are called to do - make people laugh. And that argument is compelling in its simplicity. But it’s also simple enough that it includes things in its definition that perhaps it should not…

I’ve been wallowing in the challenging bits of the literary community I’ve been eager to enter. Most notably of them is the fact that, like any other community, there is just as much likelihood that the people in it are harmful to those who trust and Love them. Perhaps they, like the ocean’s waves, are inevitable, and are more than powerful to pull down those who dare to tread among them.

The stage is a well, and its low hum dares you to dig deep and draw out what hides within. But once you dip your hands in once, you have to keep digging deeper and deeper… Sometimes, it taunts you for your fear to delve into its dark unknown. Other times, it pleads with you to venture further and learn yourself.