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  • 1 day ago
Ahead of the release of his feature film directorial debut, You People, Kenya Barris addresses criticisms about centering interracial storylines in his work. “I will battle anybody. Show me my Black repertoire of what I’ve done and put it against anybody and I’ll go up against everybody,” Barris says. “I’m by us for us.”
Transcript
00:00You know, the trailer came out, a whole lot of excitement around it.
00:03But then came up this kind of common conversation that comes up with your work
00:07where people feel there's a quote-unquote obsession with showing interracial relationships.
00:11What do you say to that criticism, and what are you saying with this film?
00:15I feel like it's insane.
00:17I laugh at it, you know what I'm saying?
00:18I usually don't even talk about it.
00:21It came from Black-ish, because I was doing a show about my family,
00:25and my wife happens to be biracial, and I wanted to actually talk.
00:29And then the spinoff was Grown-ish, which was about one of the kids.
00:34And so it was like, I'm like, I will battle anybody.
00:37I'm like, show me my black repertoire of what I've done, you know what I'm saying?
00:43And put it up against, and I'll go up against everybody, you know what I'm saying,
00:46in terms of I'm for us, I'm by us, for us.
00:51So I feel like, you know, it just happens to sort of be part of the conversation,
00:55and people will find anything.
00:56I have got some great jokes, you know what I'm saying, from it.
00:59And I had some time and was writing back to the people I thought that said good jokes.
01:03But I feel like ultimately, you know, I think one of the things that we are so monolithic,
01:09that people want to just have something to say because there's not enough of us doing it.
01:13So I think hopefully the more that we get to do this, the more stories that we can tell.
01:17They want all of our stories to be for everyone, and we, that's impossible.
01:22One story can't speak to all the black experience because there's so many different black experiences.
01:27Lauren is a faith healer, you know what I'm saying, believes in this.
01:31Like things that you would not, you know what I'm saying, really think that she is.
01:34And it so passes what Nunu was, it so passes what L.O., what, you know, what people think of that.
01:41And I feel like that, to me, is what makes us really interesting in those types of stories.
01:46It's showing all the different versions of us.
01:48That's what we see now.
02:10It's showing all the other things that we don't have.
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