News Item: “Black Ink”
Olu Alemoru: “With the means of Hollywood production in almost anyone’s hands these days, animation could be the next frontier for Black creative talent — and a group of like-minded industry professionals are intent on making that happen.”
Success in this arena can look just like the “success” of our current Hip-Hop moguls when these Black talents fail to delve into the imagery and symbology of their ancient heritage. Whenever something “urban” comes out, that to me is a failure to get to the deep well that makes strong children of African descent in particular—and any child with an attraction to indigenous power in general. The novelty of animating-while-Black is a racist fascination (even when Black people do this).
Some French white guy, Michel Ocelot, is actually the only dude I’m aware of that made and release**d a Black animated film with decent ‘ancient themes’ in DVD format. I haven’t been to an African film festival in years so I look forward to being corrected and updated… Remember that Aaron McGruder, like anyone “sane” in the business, works with a lot of Asian animation companies for his urban product. I admire the work that McGruder is doing. The professional relationship he has with Regina King should be valued, modeled and improved by any new crews coming out… Black people working together effectively and productively across gender lines without exploitation (exploitation that is often robotically habitual) is a mental health issue—and people who call themselves ‘white’ should not reach for straws of “reverse discrimination” or “exclusion for hatred” when they see this rarity of therapy happening.
Back in 2000, the kintespace.com interview of Floyd Webb has this:
I have been hearing stories about guys in Cameroon trying to do a feature animation one frame at a time on a slow azz computer with outdated software… and the community they live in thinks they are crazy… good!…