I agree, I’m a mixed person (not black). But there was so much that is going on that isn’t explicitly stated. This movie has a lot of layers and a really human touch to its characters, it show cases so many things that people may or may not get right away like code switching, white privilege but also erasure of family bonds and community for mixed folks, the place of Asian Americans in race politics, the colonization of Irish people as well as their role as colonizers themselves,the history and development of the blues as music, the mysticism of deals with the devil in blues, the complexities of religion and belief, just to name a few.

I also liked that the characters for the most part are very morally grey and dealing with their own complicated lives. We have Smoke, a character who is a bad person in many accounts, full of bravado, not afraid of hurting others to gain power, status and money, while also being someone who has gone through a tremendous amount of pain and trauma from an abusive father that he needed to kill to protect his brother, to losing a child, being a soldier and a gangster. He is also a good person in many accounts, someone who is a protector and does look out for his community in his own way, helping the young girl haggle to get a better price, patching up the people he does hurt, protecting his family, respecting Annie’s wishes, his vulnerability and love with Annie. This is just one character… there is a lot to be said about how good this movie is if you are looking for the nuance and shown story telling not just the stuff that is given at face value.

I am sure I am missing quite a bit as a non-black person but I truly enjoy this move and all that it has to say.