misha green
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'I'm Rooting for Everybody Black' : Meet 3 Honorees From This Year's The Root 100
The Root 100 honorees are all champions, and we’ll never stop celebrating our community’s accomplishments. text From NASCAR to social media and beyond, Black folks have once again proven to be the nation’s ultimate game changers and cultural icons. And 2020’s The Root 100 list is a perfect reflection of how we influence and shape…
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The Safe Negro Guide to Lovecraft Country: 'Rewind 1921'
Did you catch the fire? Sunday’s journey through Lovecraft Country was full of hope—as passed down to us by our ancestors and living elders. It might seem an odd takeaway that an episode beginning with a hexed Dee coming dangerously close to becoming a Topsy twin (uh, triplet? I’m still having nightmares about them damn…
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The Safe Negro Guide to Lovecraft Country: 'Jig-a-Bobo'
Multi-orgasmic sex while molting your white-woman skin? Running from creepy twin pickaninny caricatures? Saved from gunfire by a concrete shoggoth? It must be Episode 8 of HBO’s Lovecraft Country! Last Sunday was a welcome respite from watching The Masque of the Red Death play out in real-time on our nightly news, but you want to…
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The Safe Negro Guide to Lovecraft Country: 'Strange Case'
Hey! Welcome back to another week in Lovecraft Country! Our fifth week’s episode—the first half of our midpoint in the season, and our most extensive analysis to date—was full of interruptions and metamorphoses (spoilers to follow): Ruby was plagued by interruptions, both as a Black woman and a white one; Tic’s progress seems to be…
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The Safe Negro Guide to Lovecraft Country: A History of Violence
Welcome back to another week in HBO’s Lovecraft Country; our fourth. I want to begin this article moving backward from the largest issue in this week’s episode (serious spoiler alert): the violent murder of Yahima by Montrose. The final scene features a presumably cis Black man slitting the throat of a “two-spirit” Indigenous person in…
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The Safe Negro Travel Guide to Lovecraft Country: 'Holy Ghost'
If you watched Episode 3 of HBO’s Lovecraft Country, you already know: This was a damn near perfect episode. I sincerely believe that the horror genre is where Black folks get to tell truths that otherwise aren’t safe to tell. Horror is an imaginative space for us because so much of our history and experiences…
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The Safe Negro Travel Guide to Lovecraft Country: 'Whitey's on the Moon'
Still with us on our journey through Lovecraft Country? Last Sunday’s episode—the series’ second—is why I have certain issues with traditional Black pain/trauma narratives (spoilers to follow, so if you haven’t watched, stop here). We can certainly explore the origins of our deepest pains—but isn’t it so much more interesting with Shoggoths in the mix?…
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The Safe Negro Guide to Lovecraft Country: 'Sundown'
If you clicked this link, you probably watched “Sundown,” the first episode of Misha Green’s Lovecraft Country on HBO on Sunday (if not, go watch). Now, ahead of next Sunday’s episode, you’re interested in becoming more than a casual viewer as you recognize that the series is an incredibly subversive piece of historical fiction with…
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Lovecraft Country and the Horror Story of America
Welcome to Lovecraft Country…or um, you know…welcome to America for Black folks. Based on the Matt Ruff novel of the same name, Lovecraft Country follows Atticus “Tic” Freeman (Jonathan Majors) who takes a road trip from Chicago across 1950s Jim Crow America to find his missing father Montrose (Michael Kenneth Williams). His childhood friend Letitia,…
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'You're Not Actually Anti-Racist': Jurnee Smollett Checks the Hypocrisy of Hollywood Liberalism
Jurnee Smollett is starring in quite a timely upcoming project on HBO—the much-anticipated Lovecraft Country. The series, which is a period piece, is especially relevant since we’re following its protagonists on the “quest to disrupt white supremacy,” which is both intriguing and frustrating. We’re still fighting this damn fight. Still. The series synopsis, via HBO’s…