"Forever" and the Finding Our Safe Spaces: What Netflix’s Newest Coming-of-Age Story Teaches Us About Black Womanhood and White Supremacy Culture

I had a chance to watch “Forever” on Netflix over the holiday weekend and can now confirm that it was worth the hype. Mara Brock Akil – the creator of shows like “Girlfriends” “The Game” and “Being Mary Jane” – has done it again, this time creating a coming of age story inspired by the Judy Bloom book of the same name. Centered in a world with Black characters, the series explores the joys and pains of falling in love for the first time. 

Since completing “Forever,” I’ve been sitting with what it means for Black women to have to navigate a world that’s especially not a soft place for us to land, the humanity we’re denied, and the love and care that needs to hold us when we cannot hold ourselves up. It also reminds me of how our romantic relationships don’t occur in a vacuum, and how we internalize White Supremacy Culture plays a major factor in how we navigate relationships of all kinds.

This especially jumps out at work, where Black women too often don’t have the space to just be. To be trusted. To be respected. To be valued. To be treated well. To be themselves. 

In “Forever,” the many different portrayals of Black women across age and life experiences hold up a mirror to how Black women experience love and care in the real world:

Warning: spoilers ahead! 

Keisha

Portrayed by Lovie Simon, Keisha is a driven teenager on the brink of earning a full athletic scholarship when she runs into her old kindergarten classmate Justin at a New Year’s Eve party. Though there’s a near-instant spark between the two old friends, Keisha’s just gone through the traumatic experience of having a sex tape leaked and having to leave her prestigious high school in the aftermath (all while hiding the experience from her mom). 

It’s not until the near end of the first season that Keisha finally reveals the real reason why she needed to leave her high school and the full ride to it behind to her mother, and up until that point, it was completely believable that her daughter was pushed out of the school due to its intense racism. 

Stay with that for a moment: it’s so commonplace for Black women to be mistreated — in ‘elite’ White-dominated spaces, especially —  that it wasn’t out of line for Keisha’s mother to not fathom that something else could have been causing her daughter distress. 

The isolating and individualistic way of being that White Supremacy Culture teaches us to operate in is also what propelled the White parents and adults in the same community as Keisha who knew about the tape, and instead of protecting Keisha from further harm, used it as an opportunity to further ostracize and gossip about her. And, the inability of many White folks to see Black women and their bodies as deserving of protection and autonomy also prevented the White folks surrounding Keisha from seeing her as someone who was harmed and had a crime committed against her. 

Keisha’s ex Brian also gave into White Supremacy Culture’s pull by releasing a recording of an intimate moment with his girlfriend just to prove himself to the White boys he was surrounded by in school. Whether on the job or in the dating pool, there are Black men who will betray Black women to keep themselves close to White Supremacy Culture and its perceived benefits. We break free from this when we begin to see Black women as autonomous beings deserving of unconditional love and respect, and demonstrate that understanding by honoring their voices, and giving them the space to be their authentic selves. 

Dawn & Shelly

Justin and Keisha’s mothers represent a range of ways that Black women navigate the world as individuals, mothers, professionals, and partners. 

While Dawn is obsessed with making sure Justin sticks to the script of going to a top college & playing basketball, Shelly is consumed with getting Keisha through school and holding onto her status as the girlfriend of the next LeBron James. Though they express it differently, both have bought into the idea that their children are most worthy when they’re abiding by White Supremacy Culture and patriarchy’s standards. 

Dawn’s aspirations for her son are rooted in achievement — not because she doesn't believe in his brilliance, but because she knows the world doesn’t. Shelly’s fixation on Keisha’s boyfriend and her social image is also a reflection of survival — a belief that proximity to power, even if it’s toxic, can be protective. Both women are doing what they think is right in a world that constantly tells Black women that softness is weakness, and that our children only have value when they perform, produce, or protect.

In our workplaces, in our families, in our partnerships, and especially in our relationships with ourselves, we have to ask: Where has White Supremacy Culture taken root, and how can we dig it out?

That’s the work. And it’s not easy work — but it’s necessary if we want to create environments where Black women (and all of us, really) can thrive, not just survive.

If you’re a leader, executive, or changemaker ready to move your organization beyond performative DEI work and into real cultural transformation, let’s talk. Book a consultation with me today, and let’s begin the work of unlearning, unpacking, and uprooting what no longer serves us.