Yep. It’s about 3 black people, starring a white guy and 2 black people. Can your ears do a double-take?

I thought about it. The story of Leonard Chess is certainly interesting, but is it a way of getting white people to see a movie about black musicians? Didn’t white people see Dreamgirls?

I remember there was an article about Eva Mendes co-starring in Hitch. They didn’t want to give Will Smith a black romantic interest, because they didn’t want it to be ghettoized as a “black movie.” On the other hand, a white romantic interest could be controversial. Enter the beautiful Latina.

So that’s…unpleasant. And I have to ask myself, am I, a white person, less likely to see a “black movie”? And the truthful answer is, maybe. Not consciously, but I think when I’m looking at what’s playing, I might definitely eliminate non-white movies when I decide what I’m going to see. Which shows me how far we have to go. How not post-racism we are. Because I look at black movies as movies I won’t necessarily relate to, as if those are people too different from me for me to form a connection to them. (Which is why Cadillac Records or Dreamgirls are exceptions; I connect to the music.)

And it’s true. I know fewer black people than white people (even though some of the black people I know are my relatives). I connect less to the culture. I feel like a stranger. It shouldn’t be true, it’s wrong that it’s true, but it’s true.