Context is everything. When I first viewed the clip last week, I rolled my eyes at it. Instead of watching it and just listening to the dialogue, I was filling in the ‘blanks’ and adding dialogue that wasn’t even there.
After listening to Tim Alexander (screenwriter/producer) on Al Sharpton and Michael Baisden’s talk shows, I re-watched the clip.
Never did the black male character degrade black women, praise white women, or allude to white women being better than black women. In his dialogue he only defended himself and defended his right (and everybody’s right for that matter) to happiness.
The doggone man said, “I want happiness and peace; it’s not about a woman who is white or black. I just want to be happy.”
After listening to Tim Alexander’s interview, I think he has some personal issues (for instance being engaged
six different times to
six different women buying
six different rings but
NEVER making it down the aisle).
BUT that is neither here nor there. It doesn’t take away from the short film’s message.
Good black men just want to be happy.
Dag, I just wanna be a happy JD’07, so I
CANNOT fault a good black man for just wanting to be happy in his specific situation. Period.
