Riggs explores a diverse range of topics including the history, and rise of African American, patriarchal structure and its effects on the perception of Black families, men and women today.
The film traverses the country interviewing African Americans young and old, rich and poor, Northern and Southern, rural and urban, gay and straight, as they discuss the numerous, often contested definitions of Blackness.
Riggs mixes performances by choreographer Bill T. Jones and poet Essex Hemphill with commentary by noted activist Angela Y. Davis, and cultural critics bell hooks, Cornel West, Michele Wallace, Barbara Smith and Maulana Karenga to create a flavorful stew of personal testimony, music, and history.
The LGBTQ community is often left out of discourses about blackness, but Riggs makes it a point to include them as a central through-line of his narrative.
His documentary style videography using talking heads literally works to bring LGBTQ people to the forefront in the film to represent themselves rather than excluding or alienating them as a subgroup of the black community.
Adhering to Riggs’ notes, his colleagues on the production team, Producer Nicole Atkinson and Co-Director/Editor Christian Badgely, completed the film with Signifyin' Works, the non-profit production company that Marlon created in 1991 to produce his work.