Iâm watching Lovecraft Country. Three episodes in, I realized itâs doing something that shouldnât be astounding, but is: there are no ââgoodââ white people in this show. Itâs so common for shows and movies centered on black peoplesâ experience of racism and inequality to have a least one âgoodâ white character, or worse, a white savior. Hidden Figures had to have that white guy at NASA who took down the segregated bathroom sign, Black Panther had to have CIA Martin Freeman (#notallCIAmen??)
(I know there are even more heinous examples but I have not watched The Help)
Lovecraft Country hasâŠ.white teenagers who mock the main characters at a gas station, a white waiter who wonât serve the main characters, multiple cops and sheriffs who terrorize the main characters, chase them down, and almost lynch them, white neighbors who burn a cross on the main charactersâ lawn and try to run them out of the neighborhoodâŠâŠ..
White people love stories about racism where a âgoodâ white person intervenes orâŠwhatever, rises above racism and helps the black characters out. This is essentially the same trope as the one where a woman is about to get assaulted by bad men just so a heroic good man can swoop in and save her. If the line between getting lynched or sexually assaulted or getting to use a bathroom that isnât basically a bus ride away is dependent on the actions of one âgoodâ member of the group thatâs perpetrating the violenceâŠ.feels like propaganda at worst and lazy writing at best.
Anyway, Iâm stoked to see what Lovecraft Country has in store for us.
