A Tearful Tribute To Barry Jenkins

"Threaded there between the gritty residue that coated our shoes, that covered our hands with soot, was a love story. Not simply between man and woman, but man and his chiseling tools that filled his hands when there was nothing left to do, man and his family, who met his needs yet left him wanting, man and his fellow man, man and his entire neighborhood."
- Naledi Biyela on If Beale Street Could Talk

I ain't never seen anything like it before.

I suppose I've read some. But my mind couldn't conjure a picture as efficient 

As to see, actually see, our lives our people, communities.. Under this, not sugar-coated

But very warm gaze. A gentle lighting. 

The golden hour before the sun sets

At complete odds with what our world looks like in the dead of the night

Under a harsh fluorescent light, unforgiving flashlight

Where shadows are exaggerated, distorted

And everything becomes ghoul... 

I can't explain how amazing it feels to be seen, instead of studied. 

Like a gentle touch, careful not to disrupt the order of things. 

And I'm aware of the irony, how it sounds like handling a crime scene. 

Not to find us guilty.. instead this crime preserves our beauty

It feels like warm water washing over our bodies

Trailing a careful path around the scars. 

Sometimes in our media, our art, we get into this predatory gaze

"Let's get real for a moment..." we say. 

As if real can only ever be ugly. 

We strive to expose the grime beneath the carpet

Yet never know the carpet, it's patterns and texture and how itself is affected. 

As an artist I'm inspired, not in the colors I use on the canvas but in the grip I use to wield the brush

To try perhaps, a gentle hand. 

And as a human being I'm encouraged to lead with love.