“Afro” in relation to Black people’s diverse hair textures and styles across the diaspora, not Africa.

CONSIDER:

• Is it about Black trauma/pain/suffering? Was it executed by a majority non-black crew/cast and the non-black characters use slurs?

• Is the Black character a stereotype, caricature, the disposable partner, the non-black lead’s magical/supernatural “saviour,” the comedic relief or are they tokenised?

• Is the character whole and just happens to be Black? This also applies to race-swapped characters.

• Is the character afforded full humanity, and any cultural identity is honoured but the actor has been miscast? Is their hair/makeup/styling atrociuos? Does the lighting and/or colour grading misconstrue their appearance? This also applies to the usage of cameras that were not designed to capture how darker skin tones interact with light and other colours.

• Is the Black character objectively perfect? Does the plot perpertuate harmful ideologies and/or stereotypes?

• Is it a culturally specific piece of work that is not curated and/or executed by the represented culture? This often results in unamusing accents and inappropriate portrayals of a people group.

DISCLAIMERS:

• These considerations are not bible and will evolve. They are only one woman’s opinion (Tracy A) and she speaks only for herself.

• Tracy A does not claim to be perfect nor always get it right.