For the most part, "Star Wars: The Force Awakens" was met with positive reviews. However, one thing with which some fans took umbrage was the character of Finn--or more to the point, the actor who played him.
Said fans were appalled that the actor who played the role of Finn--John Boyega--was a black man. This is beside the fact that Star Wars is a fictional series which is set in a galaxy far, far away; there is no particular reason why any of the humanoid characters should be any particular race, unless the film chose to deal with race relations.
What the backlash against "Star Wars: Episode VII" demonstrates is that many people see white as the default race. The prevailing opinion in society seems to be that a part should be played by a person of color only when that part specifically calls for a person of color. When a part calls for no race in particular, that part should be performed by a white person. The result is that society often sees black people through the lens of race alone, without the complexities that all people, irrespective of race, possess.
This is the importance of "Black Magic". A play written by five black Harvard undergraduates, "Black Magic" explores blackness through the lenses of sexuality and gender identity. It focuses on two relationships: that between Eli and Amari, two queer males; and that between Syd and CJ, a queer female and a gender queer person. Through these relationships, as well as the platonic relationships among all the characters, "Black Magic" explores some of the different ways black people exist. Amari is a freshman who struggles with being "the right amount of black"; Eli has a contentious relationship with his father; CJ is a comedian who can't tell the race-based jokes she wants to tell in front of her mostly white audience. Through it all, the racial incidents all over America and on Harvard's campus act as a backdrop, coloring how the characters interact with each other.
This review should have happened a week ago: then it would have been published while "Black Magic" was still running. Still, it is important to reflect on the impact the play has had in its week-long run. "Black Magic" has brought black art--black queer art--to an audience that was largely neither black nor queer. Like the previous work of the director ("I, Too, Am Harvard"), "Black Magic" has ignited a discussion on what it means to be black in a white-dominated space, particularly when one doesn't fit the pop culture-produced image of a black person. It manages this with an all-black cast--by replicating the paintings often found in Harvard's common rooms, most of which are of white men in Harvard's history. Though most of the writers are my friends, I cannot speak for them or their mission in writing, directing, and producing "Black Magic". But I will say this: by bringing art by and for black people to a stage which rarely receives it, "Black Magic" has been a rousing success. Anything else--such as changing the image an audience member had of black people--is extra.
