TheQuartering [2/9/2022]
In Showtime’s three-part docuseries Everything’s Gonna Be All White, actress and comedian Amanda Seales wastes no time getting to the heart of the show.
“I think what annoys me most about white people,” Seales can be heard saying in the trailer, “is when they pretend that they’re the victim. What’s also annoying is when they, you know, when they kill us.”
Funny, informative and subversive, Everything’s Gonna Be All White and its BIPOC interview subjects create a history class of sorts that seeks to inform and challenge some viewers while giving voice and affirmation to others.
The docuseries from director/executive producer Sacha Jenkins (Nas Live From the Kennedy Center) premieres Friday at 8/7c and also features edifying interviews with comedic actress Margaret Cho, journalist Jemele Hill, author Ibram X. Kendi, historian Dr. Nick Estes, and rappers Roxanne Shante, Styles P and Willie D. The first installment, for instance, tackles the white fragility behind the Jan. 6 Capitol riot.
Seales, who is best known for her role as Tiffany on HBO’s Insecure, earned a Master’s degree in African American Studies at Columbia University and says Everything’s Gonna Be All White is right in her wheelhouse as both a comedian and a scholar.
“I wanted to get a Master’s because I wanted to be able to speak not just experientially but educationally about the Black experience,” Seales tells TVLine, “and to empower and enrich my people. This was a documentary that I felt like would allow me to continue to live that out and work in my purpose. Also, Sacha is the homie, but he’s also an irrefutable genius, and I’ve been a supporter since his Ego Trip magazine days.”
In terms of the Jan. 6 riot, Seales adds that if there are five stages of grief, she’s still experiencing the anger phase, and that sentiment comes through in the docuseries as well.
“It should have been a unifying moment among the masses,” Seales observes about the riot. “But there were so many that agreed with that that it wasn’t. That lets you know where we really are in the divisiveness and the chasms that have really sprung up in this nation. It’s scary.”