I watched Beyoncé’s movie “Black is King” on Disney+ tonight, and have so many mixed emotions.

This retelling of the lion king as performance art to speak life to black folks during a particularly tainted time while utilizing components of African heritage and celebrating more widely global black culture….

It was beautifully done, it was empowering, it was compelling, it was fun, it was full of meaning. The mixture of visual art, dance, music, poetry; the purposeful elements pulled from the Bible, from the lion king movie, from different cultures; the range of well known (not necessarily in America) musicians and extras pulled from so many different countries…

It spoke to me deeply. The artist in me swooned. My heart was light. I am feeling the same kind of (well, very similar) afterglow you feel after a joyful time spent with people you have deep relationship with….

… And I am also feeling severely disappointed and frustrated by the fact that I heard so many people demonize this movie (some claiming Christ going so far as to label it as demonic) simply because they were presented with art they didn’t understand, cultures that made them uncomfortable and/or that they didn’t understand.

Now, I love performance art, I’m all about it! The original Cats musical, the nutcracker, the arts as protest, and many modern dance shows I attended in college, were just some of the things that breathed renewed life into me. However, I am keenly aware that performance art is not everybody’s “thing”. I’m not saying that everyone needs to understand and appreciate performance art (although I wish that was the case), and I definitely think part of the beauty in performance art is that there is an element of it that is purely for fun and another element that is purely up for individual interpretations. What gets me is that many of the people I saw demonize this work of art or interpret it as demonic, I have also seen do the same thing (sometimes often) to other depictions of cultures foreign to them… or to things particularly depicting the celebration, importance of, and love for, black joy.

I’ve been thinking about this a lot lately- how ignorance can not only stifle and holdback a persons worldview, but in some severe cases keep a person from ever being able to open their eyes to the fullness of what God desires to offer and teach them through this world God created.

I’m not saying that things like evil, witchcraft, demonic activity, etc do not exist. I do in fact believe that they do. What I am saying is that sometimes we are so blind to our own biases and how deeply we ourselves and even our spiritual lenses are affected by things like colonization and a mindset of scarcity and assimilation. This makes it possible for us to mislabel our comfort zone as discernment, and to utilize that to set the standard we hold for those around us instead of spending time educating ourselves and learning about a person, place, or cultural aspect that is different from our “normal”.

Why am I calling this out within the Christian community? Because I know that we are called to be and do better. There is strength and wisdom to be shared cross-culturally. I can not stand by and not call out injustice among my own if there appears to be this pattern that needs correcting. Why am I calling this out in general? Because I know that art can be used to expose and unify and empower; and if anything that alone is what we need in this country.

Art is powerful.

Representation is also culture shifting.

This is why I was so excited to see Netflix Christmas movie, “Jingle Jangle”. When I saw the trailer, I thought it could be another corny Christmas movie, but I was also excited to see a Christmas movie made that was featuring a predominantly black cast. When I actually watched the movie, I fell in love with it because it was not another movie centered around black trauma, or a plot that emphasized the characters blackness, but a genuinely beautiful and well thought out original story about characters who happened to be black.

While the movie was well thought out, has been largely received well, and featured some amazing music and talent; I’ve still seen people saying it was just alright, weak for a musical, and lame for a Christmas movie. I’ve seen people asking why there was no direct Christmas storyline, why there was no Santa, or why not any direct Birth of Jesus elements. I found this frustrating coming from folks I know love other Christmas stories about “regular families”, like a Christmas Carol, White Christmas, & Miracle on 34th street.

Maybe these biases are subconscious and people are unaware- it still deserves to be called out as what it is: residual effects of living in a society that upholds objectively racist systems that trickle down and permeate the very fabric of our lives.

Black Joy should be enough this holiday season.

Black Joy is enough this holiday season.

Black Joy is sacred & blessed.

2020 has been filled to the brim with attacks on Black lives in addition to a global pandemic that has stripped us of so much joy and disproportionately affected Black families and other families of color throughout the United States. Must it also drag Black art and stories through the mud on its way out?

I am committed to making sure my future children, my nieces & nephews, baby cousins, future grandchildren and other descendants, are able to experience pride and love and beauty and joy in both who they are and in the skin they navigate this world in.

Period.