Black and white

by Paul Kandarian

We’ve all had moments like this: someone says something offensive or wrong or just idiotic and you shake your head unable to think of something to say until later.

Recently, a guy I know was talking about how a popular magazine erroneously came to his house, and prefaced what was coming by saying “You’re probably not gonna like this,” which is a phrase that if you hear it, you should just walk away.

But I didn’t. He then said he was flipping through the magazine where “there was nothing but Black people. Except for the ads, it was like 90 percent Black people,” he said shaking his head as if he’d unearthed an unearthly truth that would destroy mankind. Keep in mind this guy is a huge supporter of that guy who pretended to be president, so I guess his diatribe about Black faces in what I guess he assumed should be an all-white magazine wasn’t out of character.

I shook my head and moved off to talk to other people, but later a crystal clear response formed in my mind on the way home that was the perfect answer I wished I thought of to his horror of finding so many Black faces in a magazine:

Now you know how Black people feel.

Black people who’ve long felt invisible, unimportant, unnoticed, living Black in a white world populated by white faces in boardrooms, the entertainment industry, nice neighborhoods, good schools.

Like it or not, this country was and is a racist nation, the evidence of which erupted in a presidency that gave people permission to express their racism and shined a raw light on a problem that has long divided the country and still does. It gave them a desperate and pathetic voice to what they saw as a threat to their kind.

This guy, and many others, isn’t a fan of the Black Lives Matter movement either. No shock there. He’d put up Blue Lives Matter signs, and he and others would say “White lives matter, too,” completely missing the point that many miss. White lives, blue lives, have always mattered.

Black lives? Not so much.

I am white and have not a single clue what it’s like to live as a Black person. I was raised by parents who said if you get pulled over by a cop, be respectful and maybe you won’t get a ticket. Do you know what Black parents tell their kids? Be respectful and maybe you won’t get shot. I don’t think that was covered in any Dr. Spock books on how to raise your white babies, folks.

Another term many white people don’t like is “white privilege,” and honestly, I didn’t really know what white privilege was until I read about it and realized I am the epitome of white – and while we’re at it – gender privilege: older white male. Doors open wider for people like me and white people in general. For Black people, that door if not closed completely, is a helluva lot harder to tug open to get a foot in.

But in an ironic and pleasant twist, later that same day, I was part of a screening for a film I was in that was made in Brockton, written and directed by a very talented young Black man, Tim Young, with many Black people in the cast. The screening was in a small studio owned by another terrific young Black Brockton filmmaker, Rui Canvasking Lopes. The audience was predominantly Black.

I have never felt less out of place anywhere. This was a room full of people proud of their city, proud of these young filmmakers, proud to be part of a blossoming BIPOC film scene. And I am proud to know them.

The film is called “Abort,” about a young Black woman, Monica, played very well by Amanda Offley, in her first acting role, which she nailed. She plays a professional woman with an eye on her career, with a white fiancé who wants marriage and children, and his family is putting pressure on her as well. The ending leaves doubt as to what happens and I love films without tidy endings like this, leaving the audience to guess what happened – and the door open for a sequel.

This film has done really well on the festival circuit home and abroad. Tim won Best First Time Filmmaker Feature at the Cannes Worlds Film Festival for one thing. Not bad for a kid from Brockton, the stereotype of which is hardscrabble and downtrodden, which any city is in spots. But Brockton is also home to hard-working people and filmmakers like Tim and Rui who are evidence of a pride of place as deep as their desire to show it off in film.

Nothing thrills me more than seeing and working with young people like Tim, and in an industry that truly needs more faces of color, his is one of the brightest on the cinematic horizon. I look forward to being on one of his sets again.

And to white folks who feel threatened by seeing more Black faces in places like magazines? Relax – what’re you afraid of? Tomorrow, you’re still gonna wake up white. Just share the world, would you? Getting along with and trying to understand one another goes a long way to making it a better place.