Always Forward: ‘Luke Cage’

Sadly, I wake with the sun no matter how late I go to bed, and today am both PMS-ing and hungover from Mothers Day. But even if I weren’t a hot mess, the montage of black men flaunting bullet hole-riddled hoodies while cops watch and Method Man spits Bulletproof Love, his homage to Luke Cage, would make me cry and cry. How am I just now watching this Netflix series? It’s a brilliant articulation of race in America starring Alfre Woodard, Mike Colter, and everyone I loved on the The Wire save String. It upholds the tenacity of the African diaspora as our country’s true superhero saga. And in Season 1’s last sequence, the late Sharon Jones brings it all back home in a shimmery sheath and her eternal big voice. Powerful stuff, powerfully shot on every level.

"All, everything I understand, I understand only because I love."
― Leo Tolstoy