Micheal Rice (Image courtesy of subject)

For Black gay filmmaker Micheal Rice, 2020 was a tipping point.

Like the rest of the world, the Brooklyn-based documentarian (“party boi,” “black diamonds in ice castles”) began the first quarter of 2020 avoiding transmission of the coronavirus by isolating himself under strict quarantine guidelines by state and federal officials as COVID-19 cases and deaths in New York City soared. It was a safety precaution implemented to curb the spread of one deadly virus while another continued to rage, leaving Rice and other Black and queer people susceptible to state-sanctioned violence and a never-ending loop of Black trauma on the evening news. Although Rice says he felt powerless at the time, he knew he had to use his artistry to respond. “Black AS U R,” Rice’s new documentary film premiering at Outfest Fusion QTBIPOC Film Festival in April, is his response.

“BLACK AS U R” weaves through the complexities of Black queerness by taking audiences on a journey through the homophobia that penetrates many Black spaces. The film examines the impact of HIV stigma, sex work, suicide, bullying, and acts of violence against Black trans people, including the vicious mob attack of Iyanna Dior at a convenience store in St. Paul, MN only days after the fatal killing of George Floyd in neighboring Minneapolis. The film also features the first time a documentary has highlighted the story of Dominque Rem’mie Fells, a young Black trans woman whose murder reignited the “Black Trans Lives Matter” movement of 2020.

The reaction to the beating of Dior and the death of Fells (on an ever-expanding list of Black trans murders) in comparison to the global outrage of George Floyd’s death sent Rice into a tailspin.

“I wanted to hold up a mirror to our own community and help us create a space where we could talk about queerphobia, homosexuality, and what it means to be Black and gay in this country to our mamas, our daddies, our preachers, our pastors, our teachers, our brothers, our sisters, our aunts, and our uncles.”

- Micheal Rice

“After I've gone through that, [the death of Floyd] to see this young Black trans girl brutally beaten by people who look like me sent me into an overload of rage and frustration,” he said. “And when I started speaking out about it through social media, I started getting a lot of flack from most of our heterosexual brothers and sisters, and a few of our gay brothers and sisters, when just moments ago, everybody was united talking about Black lives matter. But it made me bring up the question: When do Black lives matter? Does it only matter when you are a heterosexual Black individual or does it matter for the totality of who we are as a people?”

Rice tells The Reckoning that it was clear, at least to him, that it was time for the Black community to see the impact of its homophobia on the lives of Black LGBTQ+ people.

“I wanted to hold up a mirror to our own community and help us create a space where we could talk about queerphobia, homosexuality, and what it means to be Black and gay in this country to our mamas, our daddies, our preachers, our pastors, our teachers, our brothers, our sisters, our aunts, and our uncles,” Rice says.

“I wanted us to really have an authentic documentary that not only spoke to our community, but gave context and history from a Black queer person, because that, I have never seen outside of Marlon Riggs [ “Tongues Untied”] in 1989 before he died of AIDS-[related complications], and that was 32 years ago,” he adds.

Rice is intentional in “BLACK AS U R” about educating audiences about the intersecting identities of Black queer people. With social critique by scholars Michael Roberson and Dr. Charlene Sinclair, in addition to an autobiographical look into his own upbringing as a gay child born in Kansas and raised in Texas and Oklahoma, Rice and the subjects in his film aren’t afraid to have the tough conversations. One such conversation takes place in a revered Black cultural institution—the barbershop—and the impact is triggering.

Screen Capture from the film “Black As U R”

A Place Of Trauma

With cameras rolling in the Crown Heights neighborhood in Brooklyn, Rice, and his film crew captures a no-holds-barred conversation between Black men about masculinity, the traditional Black family, religion, homosexuality, and what they view as a systematic effort to remove Black men as leaders in the community and the home. With anti-gay conservative talking points on full display throughout the conversation, Rice frames this section of the documentary as “Places of Trauma,” by illustrating the reasons why a trip to the barbershop for Black queer men can feel like entering a war zone that requires a full suit of armor before even sitting in the chair. As the on-screen moderator of the conversation, Rice says even he was affected by the vitriol present during the filming of this scene.

“As a grown-ass man, when I was filming that scene, I felt myself regressing to a 12-year-old,” Rice says. “I felt myself regressing to the first time I had an idea about who I was and my sexuality, and I was terrified that those feelings surfaced. But I didn’t mind sitting in my own uncomfortability at that point, because I knew there was a greater cause.”

“If my son came home and said that he was gay, I might have to get a stiff drink first,” said one barbershop patron. “Help me understand where this shit came from.”

“There's nothing like having our culture praise and create our own stories without us having to be puppeted by production companies and people outside.”

- Micheal Rice

In one of several gripping moments of social commentary provided by Roberson, he offers an explanation for the motivation behind the barbershop patron's reaction.

“Patriarchy, first and foremost, is the father of all oppression,” he said, before further expounding on how patriarchy often dictates how Black cishet men respond to queerness.

“I can’t understand you being born with power and wanting to give it up to be like a woman,” Roberson adds, before offering a serious question for the anti-gay crowd to consider, likely, for the first time.

“How could you be homophobic against the very people that the universe has brought Black freedom through?”

Sinclair offers: “Until we actually look at the Black lives that we all say don’t matter. Until we actually put them into the center of the equation, then Black lives will never matter.”

As a conscious filmmaker, Rice says he’s aware of the erotic and sometimes problematic narratives and images of Black gay men that attract huge audiences and financial support, but he’s hoping more artists and Black queer public figures will be more reflective and acknowledge their responsibility to the culture despite violent behavior amongst Black queer men recently finding its way onto mainstream platforms.

“To be in close proximity to something that looks like you, and then to denigrate it to its lowest means, makes our community look horrible. It’s trauma porn playing out at its most spectacular view,” he said. “They [Black gay men] will be seen as a risk and they will be seen as unpredictable.”

But as far as Rice is concerned, he remains committed to creating work that makes audiences think and moves the culture forward just as those who came before him did.

“I was never able to see myself until I was able to see what Maurice Jamal (“Dirty Laundry”) did and what Patrik-Ian Polk (“Noah’s Arc”) did and what Rodney Evans (“Brother To Brother”) did,” he said. “There's nothing like having our culture praise and create our own stories without us having to be puppeted by production companies and people outside.”

“BLACK AS U R” will screen at OUTFEST FUSION QTBIPOC Film Festival, which runs from April 8-17, and at the Pan African Film Festival in Los Angeles, which runs April 19-May 1. Watch the trailer here. And yes, his first name is actually spelled M-I-C-H-E-A-L.