In the 2014 movie Boyhood, director Richard Linklater encouraged the audience to hold as precious and unique Mason, a banal and totally average white American child who existed in an imaginary nearly all-white Texas. Mason and his friend engage in petty vandalism, and also drink and drive – and yet, Mason, “no angel”, was excused and held dear in a way a black child never would be. Lately, I have been thinking a lot about a Yale study where pre-school teachers were asked to watch videos of very young children to look for signs of trouble, and eye-tracking software revealed their eyes went for the black boys first and watched them the most. And why wouldn’t they? As consumers of non-fiction media in America, we are always being told that black boys are suspicious and that violence against them is justifiable. Photograph: David Bornfriend/film company handout Jharrel Jerome as Kevin and Ashton Sanders as Chiron in Moonlight’s second act.
In Moonlight, we also see a boy, Chiron, turn into a young man over many years, though we only see him at three stages, each time played by a different actor.
