By: Shelli Nicole

In reply to Kesiena.

Shelli Nicole here, Culture Editor @ Autostraddle and writer of the piece!

When I say visibly Black I am mostly referring to the skin tone of the leads. Usually, people cast in these roles (as the love interest or both sides of the main loved-up couple) are fair-skinned or racially ambiguous and their Black identity is often withheld both on screen and sometimes off, and only spoken about when they want to earn brownie points or dollars from their Black audience.

I understand that there are folks who are fair-skinned that are also visibly Black, but I am talking about being happy that in this particular movie, where the love interests and couple are both dark-skinned and look like me. Many MANY films (including quite a few at Sundance) still have couples who are interracial, fair-skinned, racially ambiguous and so much more and this particular film gave me (and probably countless others who are looking to see themselves reflected in film) happiness and hope that someone is actually listening.

Just because I am excited to see one, doesn’t mean I’ve forgotten or am erasing the other. We have to stop going negative and just let a nigga be happy about something.

Thx for reading ‘tho <3