The men and future men of Queen Sugar

I had already been planning on having multiple posts about Queen Sugar this week, and that one of them was going to be about the men. I just didn't think it would come first.

I relate more to the women. I could probably write a single post each for Charley and Nova, and there is a whole other post about family dynamics that is coming. Still, today we will focus on the men, and the boys, and the impressions and emotions that I have had with them.

I'm not writing about Remy, Prosper, and Hollywood. My love for them (especially Hollywood) is uncomplicated and pure.

It was first noticing the love that everyone else had for Blue that started to scare me. It would devastate so many people if something happened to him.

I started having those thoughts in the first season, but with the new credits for the second season, there is a scene of Blue running away from the camera, so happy and carefree, and this sense that it can't last.

That was when it flashed back to me what Nova had said about Too Sweet, the teen she was trying to get out of prison. He was only in there on trumped up charges and a lack of means for paying for bail. I don't have the exact quote, but she asked how many Black boys can get to be his age and still have the nickname "Too Sweet". There are too many things that happen to harden them.

I suppose it made sense that it was going to touch Micah first. He had grown up relatively sheltered, but I still saw over and over again that he feels things deeply and silently. It shows in the liquid eyes of Nicholas L. Ashe, but in those pauses where we read his feelings in his eyes, Micah has always stayed silent. When he was arrested and terrorized, of course he would not be able to talk about it.

When Micah did finally tell his story, it was the first time I have cared for Davis. Adultery is a sore spot for me, and I am not particularly fond of liars. I do believe that things like that affect the quality of love you can give.

Despite that, I had not doubted that Davis loved his son. To see it there in the physical tension in Timon Kyle Durrett's body - to see how badly he wanted to physically destroy someone for hurting his son - and to see the helplessness as he realized that all he could do was comfort Micah, yeah, I felt that.

That only really leaves Ralph Angel, as portrayed by Kofi Siriboe. He has been the hardest.

One of the first things we see him do is rob a store. We then immediately see him being tender with his son, Blue. We also quickly learn that he stole the money not because of a pressing need, but so he would have something to offer, first to his aunt, then to his father, neither of whom had asked for it.

Ralph Angel is wrong-headed a lot, and that is frustrating, but it has also struck me how broken down he has been, over and over.

Things go wrong so easily. Getting a warehouse job recommended by your parole officer should be a success story, until it results in getting cheated by being sold infected seed cane, and then being dragged into a stolen goods operation run out of the warehouse. Getting out of that involved getting physically beaten and fired. How can you stay too sweet?

When something goes right, Ralph Angel's smile is pure grace. For that I keep hoping that other things can work out.

Ralph Angel has been wrong-headed a lot, but he is also consistently caring and supportive of Blue. He is a loyal friend. He does love his family. He probably has the most to learn, but as he does learn it, his life gets better. The next lesson appears to be learning that someone can love and support you and still love and support others, and have other responsibilities. He will be better for knowing that. Learn what is real. Let the other stuff go.

I thought I would start with the family dynamics post - that was the aspect that struck me first and drew me in the most. Instead, Charlottesville happened. Raw emotion could lead many places, but one place I ended up was a discussion on Facebook trying to explain racism, and how it is not about feelings, but structure.

That is an important discussion to have (even if the only real result is getting told I am angry, wrong, and racist against white people). Racism is poorly understood, and taking down the systemic racist structure would eventually do a lot to fix the bad feelings, though doubtless with a lot of emotional turmoil on the way.

All of that is true, but the feelings do matter. It matters that the structure breaks hearts and spirits and kills hopes and dreams. You can't fix it by focusing on feelings alone, but the feelings do matter. The pain, and the chance to heal that pain, is why fighting the structure is so important.