[Tribeca 2024] BLACK TABLE -- A Self-Congratulatory Puff Piece for Black Elites

Review by Daniel Lima

The graduating class of Yale University of 1997, one of the most prestigious schools for higher education, saw a record number of black students earning their diplomas. Many have gone on to have distinguished careers in various industries, and cherish the experience of going to that institution, in spite of all the challenges set before them. Hearing this, an obvious question springs to mind: “So what?” Black Table makes a limp attempt to tie the successes of these Black people to the struggle for the social parity for Black Americans as a whole, but quickly reveals itself to be not only a self-aggrandizing puff piece, but a celebration of the elite status of the few over actual meaningful change for all.

The film is structured as a collage of interviews with various graduates of the ‘97 class, discussing their lives before arriving at Yale, their experiences at and relationship with the university, and where life has taken them since. Some time is spent detailing the birth of affirmative action policies in the American education system, meant to redress the historical exclusion of black people, and the graduates’ perspectives on cultural touchstones that occurred during their time as students.

To be fair to the filmmakers, it is clear that the intent is to let the experiences of the ‘97 class speak to the importance of the affirmative action policies that allowed them to earn their place in the hallowed hallways of such a discriminatory institution. They didn’t have it easy; they faced unique complications that white students simply do not have to deal with, and they forged a distinctly black experience within an unwelcoming environment in which they were able to thrive. Their post-grad achievements, then, are a testament to the possibilities that affirmative action allows. At least, that is the intent.

This thesis is inherently compromised by the worldview of the filmmakers (one of whom, co-director Bill Mack, is not coincidentally part of this graduating class). There is an inborn assumption that there is something special about Yale itself. Many of the interview subjects wax poetic about how grand and ornate the campus is, the odd contours of student life in an Ivy League school, and fondly reminisce about the day they got their acceptance letter. That, however, is the extent to which the film elaborates on what makes this school so important.

Clearly, there is a buy-in to the engineered mystique about this elite institution. To the filmmakers, the school is representative of the best that American society has to offer, qualitatively better than its peers. Thus, when these black people are granted access to its grounds, they are being deigned as deserving a place in the upper echelon of society. It’s a self-serving, vain attitude to maintain about the school, one that a more interesting and incisive work would interrogate.

Even if one were to take at face value that this school is indeed better, what makes the graduating class of such a lofty establishment indicative of the condition of the entire black American population? The film utterly fails to draw this link, at turns insisting on the singular experience of being a black student at Yale in the mid-1990s and attempting to universalize that experience to encompass all black people. Alumni will recount moments of racial profiling they experienced on campus, or the titular “black table” where they would congregate in the mess hall, and other remembrances that show what the life of a black person enrolled at the school were like. Yet those very particular remembrances are placed right next to them, recounting what it like watching the verdict of the O.J. Simpson trial, or the public perception of Bill Clinton, or the 1992 Los Angeles uprising.

These are well-documented historical events that these students had no direct relationship with, have no insight to offer, and seem to exist solely to root their campus activities into a broader narrative. If anything, this highlights the ludicrousness of the entire project; there was as much distance between a black Yale student and O.J. Simpson, as there was to a black Yale student and just about anyone else.

The documentary is at its best when it actually does give voice to the particulars of being a well-educated black person attending such a place. Mentions of the pressure among students to outwardly advertise their blackness, the conscious choice to either associate with the kids at the “black table” or not, and being seen by other black people as “too white” — it is these moments of the film that begin to actually approach genuinely interesting questions. Why was it so important to these people to attend Yale at all? What kind of person is attracted to someplace that they themselves deem unwelcoming and hostile? Of course, actually embracing these questions would require a degree of self-reflection that would damage the filmmakers’ image of themselves, and so they are left unasked.

Black Table ends with text detailing the U.S. Supreme Court decision that ended affirmative action in higher education. By this point, it is clear that the filmmakers don’t understand what the point of those policies was in the first place. The activists of the civil rights era were fighting for equality, for an egalitarian world that granted liberty and justice to all, regardless of race. To the black elites who back such a self-congratulatory project as this, the end goal was themselves. The tragedy of the end of affirmative action is, in their eyes, the loss of a world where a black man can be allowed to go to a really nice school and eventually win a prize for writing an essay about growing a mustache. If that is indeed the case, then maybe there’s a silver lining after all. 

Black Table is screening at the 2024 Tribeca Festival, which runs June 5-16 in New York City.​

Rating: 1/5​