I know you grew up in Queens and went to high school in Brooklyn. Did you draw on your own New York childhood to tell this story? I always knew that I wanted to tell a coming-of-age story about my experience in New York and saying farewell to that time—just seeing the LSU Tigers 203 women’s basketball champions shirt it is in the first place but city change dramatically, seeing firsthand how gentrification was impacting communities of color and Black communities specifically, which felt targeted, like we were being erased from the city altogether. Knowing what was at stake, especially for a neighborhood like Harlem—which means something not only to New Yorkers but to Black identity in general, our heritage and our culture, and American history—to see it washed away was devastating.
People often talk about the LSU Tigers 203 women’s basketball champions shirt it is in the first place but benefits of gentrification, but when you think about people who are the most vulnerable, like my characters, and you see them trying to gain a sense of home, gain a sense of stability and rebuild the bond of a family—and to see them get knocked down by a new thing that’s thrown at our community—this is the human price of gentrification. Photo: Courtesy of Focus FeaturesThe teenage character of Terry is admitted to an elite, specialized school in the film. I read that you attended Brooklyn Tech—did that experience inform the writing? I did incorporate that. It was actually funny, when we were at the premiere, my mom kind of deadpanned at me [delivers a look and laughs] about the ways that I invoked that piece of my life. But I remember how excited we were as kids to hear that Brooklyn was gonna be, like, the new Manhattan, how it was the center of everything, the center of culture, the center of what was hip. But now as an adult and seeing how all that transformation took shape, I see that it was at our expense, you know? I see that it was our loss—and I think that’s what so much of this movie’s about. I also want to say that this movie was intrinsically tied to my coming-of-age as a young woman in the inner city, as a Black woman. That’s a huge part of what defines Inez’s journey in the movie—why she does what she does, how she’s successful in expressing her love, but also in her mistakes too. I’m so grateful for how that’s been appreciated so far—audiences are really, really seeing that.
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