46 Million Strong?
As a 56-year-old, African-American male, I’ve been fortunate enough to live in seven decades of interesting reincarnations of blackness. As the 21st Century continues to emerge, it is important to examine what roles blacks will play in America and the rest of the world. My first contribution to BlackCinemadb.com is to begin a dialogue that explores new possibilities for blacks in all aspects of film. To this end, I’m creating the following four-part series:
Blacks by the Numbers: 46 Million Strong
21st Century Movie and Television Industries
Blacks in Cinema Today
Blacks in Cinema Tomorrow
It is my hope that this series provides a unique venue to discuss the opportunities and challenges facing blacks in the film industry. Throughout this series, I will be joined by BlackCinemadb.com co-founders La’Chris Jordan, A. Russell Andrews, Toni Bullock and Marc Delsoin to help fuel much needed black-on-black dialogues. If we do this right, we will ask more questions than we answer and these dialogues will be infused with all types of intersectionality with other issues and identity groups.
Part I of this series will set the context for blacks in cinema by inquiring what it means to be 46 million people strong.
Blacks in the United States of America
Any conversation about racial diversity in the United States of America must always begin by acknowledging the Native Americans who populated these lands centuries before any other immigrants created permanent settlements. The first Africans arrived in 1619 and came here as indentured servants. This means that blacks were here before the Mayflower arrived and preceded all other permanent racial groups except the Indigenous Peoples and the Jamestown Colony. By the time the first U.S. census was conducted in 1790, one out of every five people counted was a black slave.
Fast forwarding to 2016, blacks in the United States are approximately 46.3 million people, make up 14.3% of the total population, and one out of every seven Americans is black. To put the 46 million number in perspective, if black America were a country, it would be the 30th most populous nation in the world of over 230 nations.
This means that there are more blacks in America than there are all of the people in Canada (approximately 36.2 million) today. Another way to look at this is there are more blacks in America than all of the people in Australia, Hong Kong, Ireland, Israel, Nicaragua, and Sweden combined. More importantly, the combined wealth of black households in America is approximately $2 trillion.
There are as many ways to be black Americans as there are black Americans. We come in all shades, sizes, and shapes. The threats facing so many of us in criminal justice, education, employment, housing, health, etc. are severe and real. But so are the opportunities.
For most of my life, prevailing narrative about black Americans has been the “deficit model” focusing on what’s wrong; seldom do we hear about the “asset model” focusing on what’s working. Have we spent so much time focusing on the obstacles that we’ve failed to find new possibilities?
Director Ryan Coogler (left) with Michael B. Jordan on the set of Fruitvale Station.
Maybe it’s time for new black narratives. Maybe it’s time to ask new questions. Are there new possibilities for blacks in cinema? What needs to happen so that black actors no longer feel compelled to boycott the Oscars? What needs to happen to convince the industry to actually cast a black person to portray Michael Jackson? What will it take to make the next Fruitvale Station or Straight Outta Compton?
The Motown Example
In conclusion, a tiny little record company in Detroit that came into power in the 1960s, when black America was less than 20 million people, gave us a blueprint for new black possibilities. Motown was black owned, hired black talent, marketed its product to its neglected black audiences and was supported by its black communities. It dominated the major medium of its time and created its own sound. In a short time span, this start-up company produced as good of music as any company in the country and after more time, Motown was as successful as any music production company in the world.
Wouldn’t it be great to see black America become 46 million strong and use the same model and a sliver of its $2 trillion dollars of wealth for black cinema? What does this look like? How do we get from here to there?
Let the journey begin…
*Dr. Terryl Ross is a co-founder of BlackCinemadb.com and his article "46 Million Strong?" is Part 1 of a 4-part series. To subscribe to the BlackCinemadb.com newsletter, click here.
