That's why you still walkin' around here on Crenshaw thinkin' that you free, you good.
also bunk beginnings, fanfic for other religions, and white folks don't get my references
¿What you heard?
“That’s why you still walkin’ around here on Crenshaw thinkin’ that you free, you good.”
There were two groups of Black Israelites on the boulevard that day. One was at Crenshaw and King. The man who said this was on Crenshaw and Vernon.
Years ago, another man stood at this corner every Sunday holding a sign that read “JESUS SAVES GANGSTERS TOO”.
My mom would always honk and wave at him.
Later, the city put up a fence around the park at that corner. The community covered it in dissenting signs, my favorite of which read “Animals Play Behind Bars Humans Do Not”.
The park cage-fence and the gangster savior sign are symptoms of the problem that the street-preaching Black Hebrew called out through his megaphone this Presidents’ Day — here on Crenshaw, we ain’t free, we ain’t good.
What you doin’?!
After writing multiple drafts of six different features with notes from an abundance of intelligent people, I’ve learned a lil sumthin’ about myself as a writer — I am not good at beginnings.
Also, I’m not that good at characterization either.
If I got to choose my weaknesses as a writer, these would be at the bottom of my list. Actually, they’d be the first things I’d pick to be my strengths because they are, arguably, the most important parts of screenwriting, so what happens to me now?
Do I fail, drop out, and do something else?
Nah. Phooey on that.
I’mma just keep writing ‘til I get mo’ bettah.
What you seen??
GOOD OMENS (2019-2025) is so charming in great part because who doesn’t love a good Christian fan fiction?
Artistically, I respect Neil Gaiman, who is behind the show, because, in other works, he attempts to make fan fiction out of more than just Christianity.
As someone committed to writing original adaptations of African and Black diaspora folktales, I know firsthand how hard it can be to pull this sort of thing off when so much of the beauty of fan fiction relies upon the audience’s knowledge of the source material.
For example, Black Genesis is my Nation of Islam fan fiction feature, but not one person in the all-white writers’ group I workshopped it in had ever even heard of this religion, and yet… they seemed to like the script anyway. 🙂