Black Trauma Films are Played Out
Black trauma films are played out because too many times black people are left with the burden of facing racial trauma in order for other people in this country to be educated on racism against blacks.
On April 9th, a new series called “Them” comes to Amazon Prime Video. The series is about the Emory’s which is a limited analogy about a black family that moves from North Carolina to an all-white neighborhood in Los Angeles in the 1950s. This period was called the Great Migration and the series highlights the way racism is ingrained in American society. In the season, the white people in the neighborhood go through drastic measures to try and scare the black family from living there.
We don’t know the true reason why the writers made this series, but we do know it comes at the expense of black people reliving the trauma of racism and bigotry in this country. First, let’s define what black trauma is.
Black trauma is a cumulative effect of racism on black people’s mental and physical health. Hate crimes, systematic racism, health disparities, pay inequity, lack of diversity, and microaggressions all fall under the umbrella of black trauma.
The effects of black trauma can lead to feelings of hopelessness, low self-esteem, irritability, fatigue, anxiety, and depression.
Hollywood has made many movies about black trauma as a way to make money off of the black struggle. Everyone knows that the foundation of America was built on racism, and in school, we were taught about slavery and jim crow. So will a series about a white community terrorizing a black family because they don’t want them to live there tell us something about America that we don’t already know?
A problem in America is that too many people, white or black, use black trauma for their gain instead of trying to help the marginalized groups. I would have been more okay with the series “Them” if the crew of directors and writers were mostly black but that is not the case. With an all-black or mostly black crew, it’s hard to argue their intent or motives on the film or series. Although the creator of the film is Little Marvin who is a black man, four out of the five directors of the film are white. It begs the question what are the true intentions for this series?
Hollywood doesn’t care about the black struggle, but they realize that there is money to be made with movies like “Get Out” or “Us” doing so well over the past few years. However, the difference in both of those movies compared to “Them” is that they were solely written and directed by Jordan Peele and no one else.
Black trauma films are played out because too many times black people are left with the burden of facing black trauma in order for other people in this country to be educated on racism against blacks.
Whether that is seeing the footage of Derek Chauvin kneeling on George Floyd’s neck for over eight minutes on my Instagram timeline, or seeing a retweet of Jacob Blake being shot seven times on Twitter, I felt the pressure to relive my past experiences of racism in order to educate others on social injustice issues.
I share this to say that black trauma films contribute to two problems in America which are that black people should educate others to not be racist, and there are too many people trying to profit off of the black struggle.
“Them” and other black trauma films are played out and moving forward I hope that we can move away from using these types of films and have more films that focus on black excellence.
Miles Johnson is a sophomore Communications major and sports journalism minor at Morehouse College.
