By Monique
Recently, I put out a podcast airing out some of my raw thoughts about this impending Donald Trump presidency. One of the biggest issues I’ve been dealing with, aside from how everything Trump might do could basically end life as we know it (only being half-sarcastic about this) is how I was going to continue the work I’m doing here on my corner of the internet, JUST ADD COLOR.
After doing a lot of thinking, soul-searching, talking, and a little “HOW AM I GOING TO GET THROUGH THIS?!”-based crying, I decided I’ve got to do what I’ve been doing, which is talk about representation in entertainment. That’s what this site is founded upon. A lot of what happens in the entertainment sphere echoes what happens in society. In fact, I just learned that in Ava DuVernay’s The 13th states that the KKK’s penchant for cross burning only happened after D.W. Griffith’s The Birth of a Nation came out. If that’s not a direct correlation between life imitating art, then I don’t know what is. So talking about entertainment’s influence on regular life is something that is going to continue and something that has to continue.
However, we all need some levity, so please think of JUST ADD COLOR as a safe space for discussion about popular TV, movies, games, comics, etc. I’m working with a lot of POC geek outlets to utilize some of their content to help fill in the gaps I might have in my entertainment coverage (because I don’t play all of the games or read all of the comics on daily basis). I’ll also make sure to post some more articles concerning some of the recent comics and books I’ve bought recently. And, since looking back at happier times is something we all need to do from time to time, I’ll definitely pull from happier moments in history, such as analyzing the surprising pro-black woman anthem that is Sir Mix-a-Lot’s Baby Got Back (yeah, I know, I talked about my hatred of the aught’s obssession with big butts, but Sir Mix-a-Lot takes the butt obsession from a different perspective than today’s love of butts, I think).
I’ll also preach more about unity here. In these times, we need to deal more in unity and less in division. Of course, that doesn’t mean I’ll sugarcoat any intra-race racism, for instance, calling out non black POC discrimination or fetishizing of black people, or when black people express discriminatory/fetish thoughts against other non black POC. But on the whole, I’ll focus on how we as the marginalized can and should work together to preserve our quality of life under this new regime.
This is the current plan for JUST ADD COLOR going forward. I’m hoping you can help me flesh out my plan and coverage; if you have anything you’d want covered, let me know either via Twitter, Facebook, or by emailing me at monique@colorwebmag.com
Julian 