Blindspotting

Yeah, but why? Why would you do that?

Why would you let him do that?

Okay, just--

You would not believe what's goin' on

with my crazy-ass family right now.

Just... loose in the wild.

Hiya!

So as you can see, I am in jail.

Ashley decided she couldn't handle

telling Sean where I was right away,

so she told him I was doing a moving job.

To Montana.

I'm gonna be here for years,

and she can't hold off his questions anymore.

How do you tell a six-year-old his dad won't be home?

Okay, kid. What's it gonna be today?

Princess and the Frog? The Wiz?

Akeelah and the Bee? Cool Runnings?

I wanna watch Paddington 2.

Whodington what?

Uh--

It's about a British bear?

Yeah.

Don't you wanna watch a Black movie?

What's a Black movie?

A movie with people Black like you.

What color you think you are, Sean?

Honey brown.

Fuck.

Not everything is black and white,

all good or all bad.

Some things are both--

the way you can be both happy and sad.

Some things we're told are bad are good,

and some things we're sold as good are bad.

And some things change

depending on where you choose to stand.

Life is about how you choose to see the truth at hand.

And the truth isn't planned, isn't clean.

It's a crapshoot of Mom and Dad's moves

falling off a moving van.

It's...

it's not a movie, Sean.

It's a piece of music in and out of tune.

It's an unruly dance. It's a--

Bitch, what the fuck are you talking about?

No, mm-mm, don't say that.

You need to just tell him his dad's in jail.

Don't make a goddamn dance analogy.

I'm just trying to figure out the right way to tell him.

He's gonna be so scared,

and I don't want him to think his dad is a bad person.

Oh, honey, come on. I know. It's a lot.

Look, it's slow today.

We're at, like, 30% capacity,

and I'm sure I can handle any requests that come down,

and you seem...

in shambles, let's just say that.

You know, why don't you take off early

and take some time to reword that speech a bit better?

Spend some time with your thoughts.

And how will you spend the day with your thought?

I wanna smoke.

Ooh, I thought we were cutting back on that, baby.

No, I mean smoke.

Ooh, this is a nice-ass coat.

I wanna go for a walk.

In nature, please.

And it's a date.

-I just do what I'm told. - Mm-hmm.

Oh, shoot. Forgot my flash drive.

We need to teach Sean he's Black.

What makes you think he don't know that he Black?

I asked him, straight up.

Okay, but how did you ask him?

He don't even know what a Black movie is.

Here I was thinkin'

I was gonna get some work done today.

Earl, can you please remind me

to export my last podcast session?

Mm, but what're y'all talkin' about, though?

Sean?

What are your favorite movies to watch?

John Wick, John Wick 2,

Paddington, Paddington 2,

and Are You Afraid of the Dark?

-Mm? - Thank you.

See?

Not nar' a Black Pantherin sight.

I think he just needs to watch true original Black film.

Ooh, The Wiz.

-White writer. - What?

Uh-uh, Quincy Jones wrote that.

No, the-the music. He wrote the music.

The Wizand Bobby Caldwell? Damn.

Quincy Jones was not properly credited

by the white establishment

for his contribution to that film.

- Say that, Mama. - Wait.

Y'all wanna know the indisputable

Black film, though?

-What? -What?

Meteor Man.

-Nigga, what? -

Judge, if I may.

Perhaps the Blackest film of all time.

Robert Townsend superhero hood sci-fi

that paved the way for Black Panther?

Look, arguably, there's no Blade.

There's no Kazaam. There's no Bobby and Whitney.

There's no Obama. I'm serious!

It had James Earl Jones, Cypress Hill.

Come on, now.

Motherfuckin' Meteor Man. Ain't nobody better.

You can say what you want, Earl,

but my shit is The Five Heartbeats.

Oh!

You already know I love me some Eddie King!

Why would y'all have him watch that?

He's too young to watch historical fiction.

-Well... -Fiction?

You tryin' to say they wasn't a real band?

Did OJ's hand really not fit in that glove?

I suggested Cool Runnings.

Now, that's Jamaica--sorta.

White writer. White director.

Shut up!

["Somethin' to Ride To" playing]

Shit.

Tryin' to do it the hard way, huh?

You wanna-you wanna make it as hard as humanly--

you wanna roll while you drive.

Leave me alone!

Lick it, you know?

You just lick it. And then you pack it.

And then you use your palm as the other hand to roll it.

You know what I'm sayin'? So, um...

-Yeah. -...just like, you know, this.

Well, that has a lot of holes in it, baby.

You can't smoke this.

What, am I supposed to play these little holes on here

like a little recorder?

Just-just play a song while you smoke.

Just hum a little Diddy.

Ooh. Ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh.

Shh! Don't tell nobody.

Lord, yeah, I didn't tell you that one.

Y'all should have heard how he said

"honey brown" like he the only one.

Yeah, okay, Mama,

but how did you phrase the question?

What am I, on trial?

I know how to question a child about the truth.

Sean, come over here, baby.

See, you got three in one hand and four in the other.

They fit together snug.

You gotta make it look effortless,

like you just pick things up like this all the time.

That's Black boy magic.

I don't think his Blackness

is attached to how he holds his dominoes.

-Am I supposed to go now? - Yeah.

I'm tryin' to give him

cultural touchstones to hold on to.

Okay. Here, Sean, let me introduce you

to a Black cornerstone, all right?

I'm the son of a chef,

but these Hot Cheetos hit different.

It's in your blood.

Hmm.

Yuck, it's spicy!

Mm, this is more serious than I thought.

- -Okay, baby.

Go get some water. Just spit it out!

He's got lungs, hasn't he?

Look, y'all, he's mixed Black.

We can't expect him to have

the same relationship to Blackness that we do.

That's your youth talkin'. We all mixed.

Shit, I just don't want him to grow up

to be one of those light-skinned kids

who think they better than somebody.

You didn't call your 15, by the way,

-but that was your bad. - Oh, write it down.

Oh, no, it's too late. Go ahead.

Well, Ma, he's just having less of a Black experience.

Whoa, what? What are you saying?

The scale of Blackness is proportional

-to how much you're shit on? -No--

There are all different kinds of Black, equally.

I'm just sayin' that Sean out in the world

has a different experience than I do.