A Little Devil in America Notes in Praise of Black Performance

A Little Devil in America was a finalist for the National Book Award.

So much of Little Devil's project is uplifting stories and narratives of Black performance and Black performers in ways that they were not afforded by white audiences because of the sometimes narrow lens of a scope of a white audience that feels interested and invested in distilling a Black performer down to their needs, right?

The white audience's needs. And that's it. It's like here in the States, you know, when Stacey Abrams, among other organizers, did the work to flip Georgia to like a democratic state. All these white liberals were, to me, just dehumanizing Stacey Abrams because they didn't know how to engage.

So often these folks don't know how to engage with a Black person doing something that pleases them. And so they're just like, well, this person should be a superhero. This person should be give them a Marvel movie. This person should have a cape.

And it is perhaps too on the nose to say that that is a direct parallel in what I see when I witness white audiences reacting to Black performers, even Black labor now.

But I do think that it does hover around that. I mean, that's a, if anything, it's a bit of an extended metaphor that has extended through decades and lifetimes.

So much of Little Devil's project is uplifting stories and narratives of Black performance and Black performers in ways that they were not afforded by white audiences because of the sometimes narrow lens of the scope of a white audience that feels interested and invested in distilling a Black performer down to their needs, right? The white audience's needs and that's it.

But I do think that it does hover around that. I mean, that's a, if anything, it's a bit of an extended metaphor that has extended through decades and lifetimes. And, you know, this is a country that does not know how to, I think, adequately and effectively celebrate and uplift the fullness of a Black person's living, unless they have died or been killed or done something extraordinary that serves empire.

And you put that action of audience, that action of white audience under the spotlight so powerfully in this latest book.

the footage is raw, which means that there are cameramen scurrying around and all kinds of helpers moving in the background. But what that also means is that in its purest form, there is an audience of black people in direct conversation with what they're witnessing uninhibited and unafraid of anyone who might demand that they quiet themselves.

I'm such an audience watcher because I really love, be it for films or for concerts, I really love seeing how people are impacted and affected through a moment of shared witnessing.