What's Scarier Than Monsters? White People.

This past weekend, most of us were so excited to watch Them on Amazon Prime. I get so excited whenever I see Black people flourishing in the horror genre. Executive produced by Lena Waithe, Them tells the story of a Black family in the 1950s that moves from the South to the all-white neighborhood of East Compton. The 10 episodes follows the family’s first 10 days in their new home.

Let me start by saying that I watched two episodes on Friday night and had nightmares. This show was beyond creepy! The show really did a great job of holding you captive but also making you watch certain scenes with one eye open. The acting was phenomenal. Wardrobe? Exceptional. My issue? Why do Black horror stories have to be about our people suffering? Why do our horror stories have to revolve around our abuse at the hands of white people? Other races are able to freely have horror stories that focus on a vast array of topics. Black people? Oh make it racist but make it scary. Racism is scary enough. The fact that 402 years after the first slave ship came to Virginia our people are still oppressed is scary. The fact that we are still fighting to say Black Lives Matter is scary. I don’t need my favorite escape (horror) to remind me of this.

I think the exception to my rant about projects like this is Get Out. I think Get Out was done in such a way that while racism was the key component to this, it didn’t overwhelm you. It was not traumatic. Jordan Peele can take social commentary and make it scary but not beat you over the head with the message. It is subtle but the message is still clear. Them was FULL of unnecessary trauma. Why did we need to watch a Black baby murdered? What did that do for the story that we didn’t already use context clues to figure out? The goal, I suppose, was to scare us and touch on our fears. Ok, job complete. But forcing us to watch so many attacks and abuse of Black people for 10 episodes was overkill. It makes me wonder, who is the audience?

A part of me that is so torn about this show is that I liked parts of it. I liked how scary it was. I enjoyed how the storyline came together of why the Black people that came into this neighborhood were cursed to suffer. I liked the historical accuracy of how the banks manipulated Black people and made them pay extreme interest rates on loans. I loved the rare moments of Black joy. I did like the storyline of Lucky and her mental health. Too often we do not believe Black women and their experiences and just write them off as crazy. In this case, Lucky literally gets sent to a mental hospital. I think this is an important dialogue to have. But at the end of the day, this show was just too much. I am drained.

 Shows like Them and Lovecraft Country are creepy for sure. But what’s really scary about them is watching how much hatred racist white people have for us.

This isn’t Black Horror. It’s Black trauma. And we don’t need any more of that.