There is a Certain Way I Would Handle Amazon's #BlackAmerica

I am very excited for the new drama Black America to begin.  I'm so excited I changed this map I found on PBS' website.  It's not the greatest map but I did what I set out to accomplish.

One of the things people should really understand is that this project was in the works before the Game of Thrones producers uttered a word about Confederate.  The issue with Confederate is that the history behind the confederate flag is stepped in the oppression of another culture.  The News Media needs to be more responsible with the way they report this upcoming project.

That's what confuses me about why people don't see the issue with Confederate.

What if we were to do a tv show about the extermination of the Native Americans?  It's just tasteless and Native Americans make up 1.7 percent of America.  1.7, yall.

So no we as African Americans do not want to have a show for entertainment that is basically a slave fantasy.  And that's so weird to me as how you can have people running around saying, stop talking about slavery it's over to oh it's just a show, it's fine.

I am a fan of the creators Aaron McGruder and Will Packer.  McGruder who is famous for creating Boondocks is a good idea because he has a unique look on the African American community that's raw, honest and real.  So much so, people have actually complained that he's too harsh on the African American community or he's letting out secrets that we don't discuss in mixed race company.

So, I'm not expecting a fantasy show.  Alt-history, to me, is steeped in reality.  Just what if scenarios.  What if we got reparations after the war ended.

Let's face it: Confederate is going to be created.  And I'm probably going to watch it for the same reason my father and I tuned into Rush Limbaugh's show.

If I were to write for this show, I don't want to call them flashforwards but I would switch it up. But that depends on the options they have to decide on a vehicle to drive the story line.

1. I've always been partial to the Octavia Butler approach, a time traveler going back and having to navigate a new life because they're stuck in the past.
2. There's also the ripple effect they start with one defining moment that forks the entire history of events.
3. I think it would be kind of lame to just jump into it and have it just be and we start out with narration that says after the war we get our reparations and this is what happens after that.

IF they do it with a regular person like me or you in 2017 jumping back with someone else and having to adapt I think that would be cool because then you can jump back to 2017 and you can see what's happened in the future as a result of the past.

But I hate blocky, over exposition.  Someone walking into a room and speaking unnaturally about something works my nerves because it's forced.  "Nothing's been the same since the war of 1992 happened."  No one talks like that.

If it were me I would open every episode with a new spoken word poem by some random unknown online poet.  Producers scour the web and have these people perform I think that would be so great because music has been such an integral part of that time period - actually, music is important to all of the periods of our history I think applying words in the form of poetry would lend a stronger message to the show.

This project is appealing because of the whole, "Go back to Africa" thing is crazy to say.  Cattle slavery went on for GENERATIONS, CENTURIES.  If you know the history our ancestors were betrayed by our other ancestors.  Africans were not snatched without the help of other Africans.  So to say go back. Go back to where?  As far as their concerned over there we're the children of the ones who were caught.  We are very Americanized.  

And I'm proud to be an American.  It's part of who I am.

But every black person has had that fantasy.  The "what if" fantasies.  What if I can go into this interview and not worry about my skin color?  What if I don't have to worry if the interviewer is racist?  Or if the real estate agent is racist?  Or if this cop is racist?

It's very stifling. 

This show, for me, I'm thinking it will be an escape.  And that's why we watch tv - to escape.  

I'm not living life hoping for a tv show of where I can enslave white people and what life would be like if we snatched them to Africa and built up that nation.  

Louisiana was picked because after the civil war about fifty percent of the state was black and I believe that state was also picked because of the history with French Creoles.  Mississippi and Alabama were other states where there were a lot of slaves that left for the North either due to racism or work.  The south was a very hostile place after slavery ended which is what caused the Great Migration.  

Racism was so bad in the South black people made their way to Detriot and in some cases, they kept going into Canada and I don't blame them.

It's interesting that the show is starting in the 1860s (that would be my guess since that's when slavery ended) I'm really interested in who the protagonist is going to be and what the ultimate storyline is going to be.