Black As U R Is a Powerful Glimpse Into the Complexity of Being Black & Queer in the BLM Era
Black As U R (which made its debut at Outfest Fusion 2022) director Michael Rice spent 2020 in quarantine and doom-scrolling on his phone.
The pandemic was in full swing, the presidential election loomed like an ever-present ticking clock, and people took to the streets to demand an end to state violence against Black and Brown bodies under the banner of Black Lives Matter.
All the while, they defended the simple but absolute truth those three words represent against the violent reprisal of white nationalist counter-protesters and the police themselves.It was during this time that another disturbing pattern began to emerge for Rice, beginning with a video in which a young trans woman named Iyanna Dior was brutally attacked and nearly killed by a mob at a convenience store in St.
Paul, Minn. This came just days after the killing of George Floyd in nearby Minneapolis, a horrifying event that became a global inflection point for the BLM movement.
