'American Fiction,' is a scathing satire that challenges pop-culture stereotypes of Blackness

Don’t Call Me Resilient

Monk is the lead character of the new movie "American Fiction," which is based on the 2001 novel "Erasure" by Percival Everett. Monk is a Black man but never feels 'Black' enough: he graduated from Harvard, his siblings are doctors, he doesn't play basketball and he writes literary novels. In fact, his last novel got rejected for not being "Black enough." As a Black man who thinks about race but also rages against having to talk about it, Monk gets so frustrated that he decides to poke fun of those who uncritically consume what has been sold to them as "Black culture." He uses a pen name to write an outlandish "Black" book of his own - a story about "thug life" called "My Pafology." But plot twist: the book becomes wildly popular - and Monk ends up profiting from the stereotypes he so despises. The story has so many layers, and in this last episode of Season 6, Vinita breaks it down with two scholars who are well versed in Percival Everett's work - and the use of Black stereotypes in pop culture. Vershawn Ashanti Young is the director of Black studies at the University of Waterloo. And Anthony Stewart is a professor of English at Bucknell University.