Well, things just got interesting in the alt-history entertainment game.
Turns out that Confederate, the now controversial series from Game of Thrones creators David Benioff and D.B. Weiss isn’t the only alternative history drama in the works.
For over a year, producer Will Packer (Straight Outta Compton) and Aaron McGruder (creator of the Peabody-winning The Boondocks and co-creator of Black Jesus) have been working on Black America, a series for Amazon.
From the Deadline exclusive published yesterday: “It envisions an alternate history where newly freed African Americans have secured the Southern states of Louisiana, Mississippi and Alabama post-Reconstruction as reparations for slavery, and with that land, the freedom to shape their own destiny.”
It sounds like there is plenty of drama baked into this new alt-premise production, which is smart. It should make for lively television. Frankly, a more realistic program dedicated to imagining the impact of actual reparations, like I like to fantasize about in my spare time, might not make it past the idea stage.
Let me give you a couple of examples. I simply cannot imagine watching white Southerners, afraid for their ill-gained fortunes, being effectively encouraged to find ways to live and work productively with their former chattel. That sounds like it would take a lot of meetings.
There would have been cinematic rough patches, I grant you. After all, according to Yale professor David Blight, “in 1860, slaves as an asset were worth more than all of America’s manufacturing, all of the railroads, all of the productive capacity of the United States put together.” That’s a lot to lose.
But after the awkward part? A generation after all those reconciliation councils had created a new representative government? Think of the revitalized communities, new business developments, and agricultural innovation we might have had. There would have been so many Booker T. Washingtons running around back then, we’d need a year of Februarys to celebrate the breakthroughs. The post-Civil War “black codes” would have been dismantled. The Klan, an emerging terrorist force, would have been properly punished. And the thirteenth amendment to the Constitution would have gotten a much-needed re-write.
Now, imagine The Great Migration without the pain and suffering. Where’s the drama in that? It would just be known as “that time the family moved.” Yawn.
Scene: A family arrives in Chicago in search better-paying manufacturing work and a new life. It’s 1919. They are welcomed by their neighbors. Eventually, they find affordable homes to finance and buy instead of being exploited by “contract sellers.” Equal access to education. Attentive doctors. Helpful police. Churches which opted to disavow racism instead of cementing it into the cornerstone of their faith. Everyone has normal problems.
Cut. So boring.
In my fantasy series, this sorry scene would be repeated in zip codes across the country since the cities currently suffering from widespread income inequality (and race-based strife) tended to be Great Migration destinations. With a different history, today they’d be filled with a bunch of Regular Jamals and Shaniqua Q. Citizens building on generational wealth, living their best lives, minding their own damn (thriving) businesses. Right? Who’d watch that?
It gets worse. Without a race riot for its inspiration, Kathryn Bigelow’s new movie “Detroit” would be a tired documentary about auto innovation, the evolution of jazz music, and middle-class success. Colin Kaepernick would have a job. “The talk” would involve college admission strategies. Two generations of black Americans would enjoy the security generated by favorable home financing, a benefit only extended to white veterans following World War II.
And I would have funny memories of my (no longer) “angry black man” dad ambling around the yard he could have afforded, good-naturedly yammering about cleaning up the garage like a Norman Rockwell painting come to life. They would have been like the memories my white husband has from his childhood, memories heavy with feelings of belonging, safety, opportunity, and contentment.
I’d miss hip-hop, that’s for sure. But whatever came instead would probably be just as good. Maybe a collaborative genre with some now reservation-free indigenous artists? I mean, if you’re going to reconcile, why stop with the formerly enslaved?
Make no mistake, I’m a huge fan of both Packer and McGruder. I’m curious enough to want to check out their show when it debuts.
I fully concede that my dull fantasy series would probably not be as entertaining. Still, I’d watch it every day. Maybe twice on Sundays.