Donald Glover broke the news that even the best black artists are doomed

And I feel him. 

Because on Season 2 Episode 6 of Atlanta, I sat numbed by the realization that black art, at its best, dies in a blaze.

Whether that means it's labeled differently than other art, left to smolder in a ghetto, or that the mainstream can only see it as The Black Version Of Something Else, black art flames out, stomped.

Donald Glover shows this premise with the character Teddy Perkins, a spooky spoof of Michael Jackson, who he also plays in..."white face." Which, obviously, we'll try to unpack over time analyzing TV's best "race" episode. 

The first question I had of Teddy was "why does your voice sound that way?" The unnatural falsetto models MJ but, more than that, it betrays pain. The voice recognizes that all voices are only a medium for others to receive you. What a strong parallel to underline: black art is the only medium through which we're received. As human. 

Meaning, even black people who aren't artists -- but are living in their artful way and surviving and thriving through a hostile world -- get judged by the public image of Blackness. Perform.

We are all celebrities. We are all a credit to our race. Or we are not. That is how humanity gets erased, by lumping people together as one thing. 

Meaning, black art can't be seen on its own. Especially when sold to other interests.

But Donald Glover is making us see it.

By going straight to the point. Michael Jackson's life howled madly at us what happens to the best black artist. 

And because he did that, we'll die on that hill for Michael. We'll defend his odd manhood in the name of his stolen childhood. 

Because of what he did for Blackness. 

And so Atlanta and Donald Glover and "Darius," packed those ugly ideas, from the ghosts of black trauma and the kitchen sink of racism, into 41 minutes. And I know how to feel.

Mainly, lost. And upset.

Donald Glover as "Teddy Perkins" as Michael Jackson doubles down on a nail I'd hammered in as a fourth grade poet. An idea that I'd been recently talking about with friends:

"we're doomed to repeat the same mistakes lol

Black art is a commodity we undersell because the best black artists are persecuted til they die. we encourage fame and rip people down because of it in the same breath. it's like why would you want to win the lottery when you hear the fate of lottery winners? they all end up broke, crazy or beat down by betrayal.

that's how black artists are."

Simply put, no one wants to be Michael Jackson when we can hear him just the same without taking on his pain. We all want to listen to his music, and buy the part of him that makes us feel good. 

Donald Glover has reached peak fame, and his Blackness -- the composite elements of where he plants his culture flag -- bops. His Blackness struts front and center, as if to say, the same myth that might be used to exile him is the one he'll eternally play upon in the heart of his stories. He's really thumbing a broad nose at everything.

And I'm upset by it. Because he feels the need to. And we all, in some way, have felt the need to respond to an unjust, absurd society in our art.

A society that has a wrong idea of us. One that's painted us a color, defined that color "bad," and then placed that origin on us too. A society that has "black on black crime-d" us into believing we are what we're not. I'm upset that Donald Glover lives in this realm of shared Blackness that's both famous/shining and as exhausted as I am/we are about all of it. The racism, the bias, the inherited male shit, the Earth, the destruction. It's all very tiring. 

Glover's scared to die in his light. Like Michael Jackson and Prince Nelson Rogers died from the scrutiny. Like Whitney died. And more of us still will die, though I don't know the next name. I'm currently dying from the fatigue. 

Of course we're going to keep talking about bias and racism, even in the popular art forms like television. But we need to talk about love deficits, and care debts. We inherited Teddy Perkins' self-hatred. Sammy Sosa's vanishing problem is also, by that math, our family problem. Sadly, we all gotta snowshoe through the Whiteness tundra together, no sherpas.

We can't just become the snow, badly as some of us want to.

But we also can't kill ourselves. We can't die selling the whole identity short. Society ordains Blackness, yes, but it's also earned, and it's armor. The triumphs born from that pain are earned, and shared.

And all that said, I'm elated Darius ain't dead. I don't know if my heart could've handled that.