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Black Lightning is more than ready for prime time

Black Lightning

It is finally here.  I do mean finally for I have been waiting for seems to be ages (1977).  I am calling for a second season having only watched the first two episodes.  I am not sure of the level of involvement Tony Isabella & Trevor Von Eeden in the production of each episode.   The first two I enjoyed, did I say that already?  The first two episodes seems to have been packed with every issue seen in mainstream media and think pieces regarding the Black community.  This posting is not a think piece. It is my piss piece.  Before I touch on the piss, thanks, many thanks, to Salim and Mara Akil for making it happen.

Black Lighting  opens with a Black parent, once again, having to bail a child out of jail for exercising his/her right of protest in the USA. We need to question why peaceful protests with no guns see protestors arrested. Please do not take I am saying people of color should have guns at protest marches.  We would be shot before the first step taken. I am only making an observation. 

Before you are allowed to recovery from the bailing child out of jail scene you are pushed directly to Black man placed on roof of car by police in case of mistaken identity.  This scene is also packed with the idea young Black people in USA think we have rights.  As he is pushed face down on the car he is yelling for his daughter to abide by the words of the officers. She replies, “I have rights…” I was thinking no baby you don’t.  If Hillary was in office and Lynch was over the DOJ, then you would have rights.  I found the father’s speech after being released by the officer to be a bit unrealistic.  If the father was aware enough to tell his daughter to do as the officers said, then he also would be aware enough to know to save his speech for a lawyer.  Police will use such speeches to lock your ass up, don’t do it.  There were also levels to who had accused him of “fitting the description”. Saving those levels for another time.

I own I am still a bit salty about 2016 and seeing Nina Turner didn’t help. However seeing Amanda Davis on the screen was comforting.  Amanda Davis foreshadows why Jefferson Pierce returns to being Black Lighting, the 100 gang has control of Freeland. The fact he has looked the other way and made a deal with the gang speaks to matters that are not so fictional.  I knew of a guy whose grandfather was a small town police sergeant, all I have to say.

I think of the big blow up in 2016 in some sectors of the Black community over “super predator”.  When Jefferson Pierce was able to ignore a drug dealer using a child to sell drugs, I thought, “Yet folks still mad at Hillary.”  When a grown Black man aware of the system uses a young Black male to commit a crime, he is a super predator, don’t bother getting at me. Same if it is a Black woman.

The drug dealer, Lala, had one main marker of the super predator, intelligence.  He was able to spit “truth” while engaging in activities that break down the Black community.  One of the activities being trafficking young girls for sex. The ease with which he was about to make a young girl pay off the debts of a drug dealer she had only met at the club.  There were many levels in that one scene. It was nice to see something rarely discussed in #metoo.  As you know when those hip-hop tracks for #metoo drop, no one will listen for who cares what happens to Black girl? We all close our ears and eyes to pretend gangs happen in a vacuum. Another day.

The other tool from the Deconstruct the Black Community toolbox displayed by Lala was toxic masculinity.  Lala displayed to the young barely 12 drug dealer how to be quick to pull a gun. Gun play was always front and center when a gang member was in a scene.  Disclosure, I don’t know those folks unless they are hyped on something. A general rule don’t show your piece unless you ready to fire your piece. Keep it tucked. I am not doing a gangland gun primer, just saying I didn’t recognize those characters.  Being quick with a gun make the unnecessary necessary.  Who is trying to have heat in global warming?  Then again when you put a gun in the hand of an emotionally unstable young person you can get anything.  

All of these things were packed into one episode.  Episode 2 was also packed with matters that have gone quiet as a source of concern within the Black community.   The people were asking Jefferson Pierce, a school principal to fix things that fall within the jurisdiction of the police.  Although fictional, it still pained me to watch Black people trapped in a sense of helplessness that they are looking to one person to fix an entire community.  It was painful for it was like watching Tavis Smiley and Cornell West attack Obama for 8 years.

Black men attacking another Black man rather than banding together to make use of the tools in the public domain to implement change.  I am being real, not real salty. Everyone in that scene were crying, “Be our savior” rather than owning the power they have within for change.  Jefferson, woke Black man, was also caught in the helplessness, otherwise he would have said something about what the community could do rather than think he alone could fix it. I know that would mean no second season of Black Lighting. 

The police was still stuck on police brutality and looking the other way at the actual crimes in the community.  Inspector Henderson, Black man, claimed the hotel known for the trafficking of young girls could not be close.  I had a Dekalb County, GA flashback.  Hell, could be a present, now that I think about it. 

As I watched the scene of helplessness, I thought what a bunch of crock. Why are we still saying a Black man must save the day when Black women have been doing it for centuries?  Put the cape on a Black woman.  I was rewarded within seconds to see a Black woman, standing alone to take on the gang. She knew the risks but was ready to wade in the water for her child. Jefferson and Inspector Henderson, Black men, were patronizing and thinking the law still applied in dealing with the 100 Gang.  Lawanda, the Black woman, saw the imminent danger.  Yeah, I swim in saltwater, it is good for the body.  I’ve been trying to tell you, stop acting as if shit is still cool. We in danger. 

I shall end this posting here, mainly for my eyes are strained.  I shall mention at another time the significance of:
Control Black women
Metal detectors in schools
Black success guilt





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