"UnPrisoned" Is the Show the Mixed-Race Community Needed

I wrote this article back when UnPrisoned first aired in spring of this year. It almost got picked up by the LA Times but didn’t quite make it. Then 1000% Me: Growing Up Mixed (which I still need to see) and Queen Charlotte: A Bridgerton Story dropped on HBO and Hulu respectively, making my piece about UnPrisoned old news, but for a very positive reason. Suddenly three shows that involved mixed race identity were forefront on major streaming services at the same time.

But this piece still means a lot to me, so I’m sharing it with my new Substack community:

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I sent my publisher the first draft of my memoir the week I happened to watch UnPrisoned, a new show on Hulu starring Kerry Washington and Delroy Lindo. I hadn’t expected the dramedy to mirror my own relationship with my father so closely—more closely, in fact, than any show I’d watched up to that point. My memoir is about that very relationship, specifically, growing up mixed race with an absent father who had spent time in prison, and understanding the depths of his love later in life. While Washington’s character Paige is Black (though her mother’s race is never mentioned), Tracy McMillan, the creator and showrunner whose life UnPrisoned is based on, is mixed race just like me. McMillan expertly weaves in that identity through Paige’s mixed-race son, Finn, and through Paige’s experience being raised by white caretakers in her parents’ absence. For myself and many others in the mixed-race community, UnPrisoned brings to the screen a realistic portrayal of the mixed experience, surfacing emotions in a way we didn’t expect.

UnPrisoned isn’t the first TV show to explore mixed race identity, but for many of us, it soars above what has come before. According to TaRessa Stovall, 68-year-old Black and Jewish author of the memoir Swirl Girl: Coming of Race in the USA, “[UnPrisoned] reflects aspects of my life that I’ve never seen reflected on the screen anywhere. And it does it in such a way that even though the specifics are different, the connection and the sense of relatability is absolutely palatable with every episode.” UnPrisoned doesn’t rely on stereotyped depictions of either Biraciality or Blackness, providing space for those of us who straddle color lines to not only see ourselves on screen but also watch aspects of our lives play out.

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Paige Alexander’s father Edwin (Delroy Lindo), fresh out of prison for the umpteenth time, resolves to stay out. In order to steer clear of his former associations, he moves in with a reluctant Paige and her teenage son. Paige wrestles with opening up not just her home but also her heart to the father who has a history of breaking it. His presence threatens the delicate bubble of self-care she has created for herself as a therapist, and which she shares with others in her popular live streaming. Throughout the series, Paige and Edwin dip their toes in connection, attempting to form a genuine connection despite the rap sheet of the past. In an interview for TheWrap, McMillan said, “I’m not writing this show as a favor to the audience. I’m writing the show to work it out for myself and audience [sic] receives catharsis through that.” Her self-focus is precisely what makes the show so relatable. She’s not hitting us over the head with pithy advice, because she’s still working things out for herself (a perspective I try to take in my book as well). And while Edwin pokes fun at Paige’s “white lifestyle,” such as her preferences in food and men, the show itself allows for different ways to be Black, making it relatable for all of us in the wide spectrum of the Black experience.

I grew up without my father’s steady presence. Instead, he came in and out of my life much like Edwin did with Paige. My father was in prison before I was born, but I carried the stigma with me throughout my life, as well as the knowledge that my parents had never been married, that my dad had an addiction to alcohol, and that he had a murky past with guns and domestic violence. Just like Paige, I grew what I thought was a thick skin from my father’s many broken promises. Stovall, whose parents grew up in Minneapolis, where UnPrisoned is set, had a similar experience with her Black father: “He was a deeply troubled man who grew up to be very dysfunctional and destructive to a lot of people. He was absent in a lot of ways.” What draws us both to Edwin is not just seeing the effects of this absence played out on screen. It is also the magnetism that Delroy Lindo brings to the role. The viewer can’t help but root for Edwin, and for his relationship with his daughter. Stovall says, “The details are different but that man is all of our daddies. And the other thing is he wins you over because he so clearly really wants to try.” Throughout the season, Paige learns just how much Edwin had centered her in his life, even from afar. He lacked follow-through, but his mind was always focused on his daughter—truths I have also learned about my father, albeit after his passing, through letters I’d kept from my mom and me. UnPrisoned explores the systemic racism Black men face that often creates an extra hurdle to their ability to be there for their children in the way they’d like.

Edwin also has a deep impact on his teenaged, mixed-race grandson, Finn, who is meeting him for the first time. Light skinned and with wide, loose curls, Finn is still coming into his own confidence. Before Edwin moves in, Finn is most comfortable skipping school to come home early and play Dungeons & Dragons. As their relationship develops, Edwin teaches Finn the “Black nod,” and introduces him to soul food on a trip to his hometown in Alabama. Growing up in a very white area without my father, I too “learned Blackness” later in life, which Paige refers to as “Nigrescence,” in the episode with the same name. For me, nigrescence came most poignantly through becoming friends with a group of Black colleagues in grad school. Just as is represented in UnPrisoned, they welcomed me into their fold and saw me as one of them, believing that Blackness comes in many forms.

In Edwin’s old, abandoned family home, Finn reveals that he often wonders if he’s Black enough—a common thought for mixed-Black people, especially in adolescence when one’s identity is still being formed. “Let me tell you something,” Edwin says to Finn. “Defending your Blackness to other Black people, that's one of the Blackest things you can do.” This single line speaks volumes to the mixed-race community and ensures us that we do belong in this space, in this Black family that McMillan has created. Though TaRessa Stovall grew up with Blackness from childhood, the character of Finn left a deep impact on her: “I can’t relate to Finn directly but I feel Finn. When he’s on the screen and he's going through his little teenage stuff, I am right there in his body with him. It’s true that I am a 68-year-old Boomer whose life experience is radically different from his, but he is resonating with me like none other in my whole life on the screen.” Finn feels like teenage me as well—shy, slightly hunched, trying to not make noise, to not take up space in a world that seems scary. Watching his grandfather’s effect on him, seeing him stand taller, I wonder what extra confidence I would have gained if my father had lived longer, if we had been able to connect at a deeper level.

Black-Hispanic therapist Teresa Doniger was raised by her adoptive Jewish parents and met her biological father, who grew up in segregated Northern Virginia, when she was 34. “When I hang out with him, in some ways, I feel more Black because I don't have to negotiate, like, ‘Do I need to speak a certain way? Are people noticing how I'm dressed? Is my hair perfect?’ I mean, he cares about those things just because he happens to be a very polished man. But if I show up to his house and my hair is a mess, he's not gonna care.” Doniger goes on to discuss the healing that comes from walking through the world with her Black father, who reinforces the world she sees. “We’re like ‘Yep, that person just stepped in front of us in line, not even acting like we're here.’ And we shake our heads. And sometimes we'll be like, ‘Uh, excuse me, we were here.’ I value those moments because growing up I didn't have anyone to acknowledge that. I thought it was very cool the way they [UnPrisoned] spelled that out for anyone who wouldn’t get it.”

Through McMillan’s introspection through the characters on the screen, she created a very realistic portrayal of the mixed experience, and particularly of growing up without a Black father. As America becomes more racially diverse, we hope to see more of this type of representation on screen. As Edwin tells Paige early in the series, speaking to her history of choosing unavailable men, “You’re a main bitch. You’re not a side bitch.” Through Edwin, McMillan asserts we’re main bitches too. We deserve to be the center of our stories. And I know that’s what my father wanted for me as well.