Spoiler alert. Boil the kettle at your discretion.

It’s been a week since Kenya Barris’ You People landed on Netflix and like any film with some topical racial commentary, it had my kettle boiling. 

Co-written by lead star Jonah Hill, the film centres around the romantic relationship between Amira (Lauren London), a Black Muslim woman, and Ezra (Hill), a White Jewish man, as they try to navigate the religious and cultural hurdles between both themselves and their families. 

Both are put through a test of patience: Amira who navigates triggering conversations with her enthusiastically ignorant soon to be mother in law, Shelley (Julia Louis-Dreyfus) and Ezra who is put through the ringer by Amira’s father, Akbar (Eddie Murphy), whose unprovoked clap backs provide an equal serving of humour and tension throughout. 

Overall Barris’ film is funny, comically overdone in parts, but true to his humour and style, which as a fan of the Black-ish series, I appreciated. Both him and Hill pepper You People with intentionally cringe conversation, that despite reducing you to a point of physical discomfort, add a much-appreciated element of realism. Because let’s be honest, if your mother compared the Jewish experience to that of the Black community, and your fiancé’s mother went to reach for the slave receipts in her purse in response, you’d likely want to eat your body weight in potatoes too. 

Admittedly, it’s unlikely to be the best film that any of us will watch this year. However, I give it points for its ultimate depiction of religious cohesion, something we rarely see on screen. Also, its timeliness, for my key take away from Barris and Hill’s creation was its commentary on how the modern day Black community navigate their relationship with Whiteness and the past it continues to represent. 

We see this best explored by Murphy’s character, who sees the racism in everything. He spends most of his scenes trying to catch his future son-in-law out as a culture vulture as opposed to the ally he portrays himself as. He attempts to trick him into saying the n-word while singing Ni**as in Paris, takes him to a pick-up basketball game in the hopes he’ll embarrass himself on the court and calls him out for co-hosting a podcast on ‘the culture’, something he’s not inherently apart of.

Only thing is, that’s not Ezra, as he shows that he’s there to appreciate, not appropriate. We see him having a genuine interest in music by Black artists, a proven respect for the game and a podcast in which he does not act as a gatekeeper or insider of Black culture, but as an active observer, an ally. One, who week in sits down with his Black best friend to discuss favoured music, life events and at times the relationship between the Black and White community: him speaking from his own experience while his friend, Mo, speaks from hers.

In one episode, the two explore whether it is possible for Black and White people to ever fully be at peace with one another. Ezra, having two of the most important people in his life come from the Black community, is adamant that there can be harmony, but Mo says no.

“That’s how powerful this shit is bro”, she says about their bond before going on to explain that the relationship between Black and White America is like that of a couple when the man has cheated and the woman is unable to move past it.

“For Black people in this country, White dudes are the cheater. And we’re the chick who can’t move on. No matter how bad we want to, we can’t forget what y’all did and what y’all are still doing.”

We see the reality of Mo’s words scenes later, when Ezra finally challenges Akbar and asks him why it is that he has never liked him and instead of getting to know him has placed all his efforts into proving that he does not belong around Black people. Murphy’s character falls short of an answer, but not just in that conversation. There is a second with his brother EJ, who tells him that “times have changed, the world is different”, and that by behaving in the way that he did, all he has done is rob both Ezra and his daughter Amira of a pure love.

Commentary worthy of a cupper.

The film is clearly centred around the African American experience, but it’s fair to say that the, as referred, infidelity-driven rage reverberates within Black communities across the globe. And we cannot forget. We are burnt by the past, our wounds reopened by unjust killings and ill treatment by police, unfairly sanctioned African countries, crippled economies by western interference and the continued unequal distribution of wealth: a remnant of colonial reign, which quietly continues to dominate. We’re mad. And our infuriation is heightened the more conscious we become about our everyday mistreatment.

We’re also hyper woke, almost too woke. Sensitive even, as proven by a lot of Black twitter’s response to the film and its commentary. We have injustice on the brain, at times so intensely that it is all one sees or hears. And though I maintain that it is rare, it can also be what one sees even if in that instance, it’s not there. Which is what we see happen to Murphy’s character. His stance and anger, I believe, is justified. However, it is misplaced.

The Black community is allowed to be angry. We have been and continue to be wronged. And there is a benefit to that rage. When channelled, it sparks a flame that fuels movements, inspires and unites us as a people. It pushes us: forces us to individually unbind the shackles of mental and physical slavery and fight for the freedom our forefathers were promised.

But on the flipside, how far can holding onto all that anger and pain really take us? Does it give us collective drive as much as it individually cripples and prevents us from moving on? Instead of unbinding the shackles does it, at times, keep us chained? Does it stop us from being able to evolve with time, positively engage with actualised members of the White community or find love and common ground with someone who is not our likeness?

We’re allowed to be mad. Hell, I’m mad. But there is something to be said for not allowing that anger to seep into our everyday view.

Growing up, whenever I bore a grudge, I was told that when you hold onto anger, it’s you that it eats up, bitters and poisons from the inside, not the person that you’re mad at.

A very simple thinking to apply to a complex subject, I know. It’s not to say that we should just let go and forget. That’s not going to happen. But it’s a thought worth bearing in mind as we try to manage our inner peace and pave a way forward. Because, it’s the only direction that we can go in. The world is the most inter-racial, religious and cultural it has ever been and I’m here for it. It’s a good thing, one that will only continue if we healthily nurture it.

And on that note, like Akbar who corrected his wrongs in the end, I’m glad Netflix has seen the error of its treacherous password ways and fixed up real quick. They really had me screaming ‘You People’ and ain’t nobody got time for that *Sips tea*

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