Thank you for this.

I’ve been trying to be careful about my discourse surrounding movies like Queen & Slim, and Harriet. I don’t object to those movies. In fact, I’m very curious about Harriet.

I know there is an audience for those films, I’m just not that audience,as a rule. As an older woman, I’m generally not in the mood for those types of films, and I do “prefer” lighter fare. I will read a book first, because I also do not have the kind of disposable income, that allows me to go see anything and everything that gets made, no matter who the directors are. I have a very strict priority of movies I’ll pay to see in a theater, although once it hits home viewing, all bets are off. I enjoyed KIN, Fast Color, and Moonlight…on DVD.

So, I guess I will watch movies about Black drama, and trauma. I just won’t shell out twenty, to thirty, dollars to see such movies in theaters.

What I object to is being guilt tripped into seeing these movies. I rebel at being told I NEED to see these types of films, otherwise I’m being ignorant of our people’s lived experiences, or that I’m running away from something. There is some, (probably immature), part of me that wants to yell at the Black people who do that , “Don’t tell me what I SHOULD do!!!”