In the 3rd Episode of the new Twilight Zone “Rewind”, directed and written by Jordan Peel, I argue that the show captures Hortense Spillers’ ideas around beingness in “Mama’s Baby, Papa’s Maybe: An American Grammar Book”. The episode revolves around a Black mother, Nina, who repeatedly revisits her past, attempting to change it in order for her son to have a good future. While changing her destiny with each rewind in time, she finds that every outcome leads to police brutality towards her son. Although the episode had a happy ending, I argue that her experience shows how the constant fear and need to accommodate to police or authority is dehumanizing as a Black individual. As Spillers explains, blackness has never been included in the category of human (1987, 66). I argue that Nina and her story was a physical representation of how one is minimized and not able to reach full beingness. Nina’s experience is a reality for Black people throughout history; where the constant fear and negotiation of decisions is a major part of their daily lives; further denying them the category of being or human.
