By Agunda Okeyo
The Walking Dead is one of the best TV programs I've ever seen and perhaps one of the best cinematic experiences I've ever had. I often feel myself as part of a very small club, a club of artists, romantics, visionaries, humanists and spiritual thinkers.
This show digs so deep into philosophical questions around our humanity and what is "community" and does so without the fatigue of liberal or conservative rhetoric AKA bullshit. It physically confronts you with characters' decisions in a way that life often confronts you-- "who you choose to be is affected by what you choose to do--even when it appears you don't have a choice."
Without the overbearing constructs of formal society, given the Zombie Apocalypse, the show preaches empathy not judgment. So, now Rick Grimes (Andrew Lincoln) and Michonne (Danai Gurrira) have started a LOVE THANG! And you know what, it feels good and honest to the characters and the show.
Interracial romance in America often lacks depth in my lived experience of it and the cinematic depictions of it, largely because guilt around race fucks with folks' ability to be honest about love as equals (then add gender and class and it becomes impossible for people to keep in real and DO BETTER).
But these two characters are equals--warriors even--something rarely seen between a man and a woman on screen. And isn't it curious that neither of these exquisite thespians are from the U.S.?
Perhaps being raised outside of the imperatives of American racism allows both actors to show a love that's healthy, compassionate, and equal, because I've never seen interracial love depicted as beautifully on small or big screen before.
