Every other inch a lady.

I want to see Lupita Nyong’o as an unlucky-in-love wedding planner in a frothy romantic comedy. I want to see David Oyelowo race against the clock to save his wife and child in a big-budget action thriller; I want Chiwetel Ejiofor to sweep in as the miracle bachelor in a Nancy Myers movie. I want to see Idris Elba as fucking James Bond already, instead of just hearing about how great Idris Elba would be as James Bond. I want actors of color to have the same freedom to make good choices and bad choices and challenging films and mindless popcorn paycheck fluff as every other major performer and director in Hollywood.

Clinton killed a half million kids with sanctions, Bush invaded Iraq & Afghanistan, Obama drone bombed a half dozen countries, but “Muslims are so violent.” While US soldiers were emptying clips into pregnant mothers, bombing weddings, and dropping thousand pound bombs on buildings filled with civilians, 1.5 billion people were being smeared as violent for crimes they didn’t commit. While the military used cluster bombs, white phosphorous & depleted uranium on the occupied, Fox News was preaching that Islam is the problem. When Israel was massacring Lebanese civilians by the dozen, the US was express shipping weapons over to enhance the slaughter. 2.3 million in jail/prison, the crime bill, gutting public housing, racist drug laws, executing Black people every 28 hours, that’s violence. “Freedom of speech!” But tens of millions of people don’t have the freedom to live without the US military bombing them. “Freedom of speech!” And freedom to spy, freedom to wiretap, freedom to infiltrate mosques, freedom to mass incarcerate, freedom to bankrupt the sick, freedom to deny affordable education.

Barthes goes so far as to define ideology as the process of colonization itself: the occupation, exploitation, incorporation, and hegemonic domination of meaning—by meaning.