By David Jordan Jr
I’m quite sure you have heard of the old adage, “The more things change, the more things stay the same.” This truth holds weight in pretty much all aspects of life. In modern day terms, this adage holds a great deal of weight when it comes to people discussing technological advances, new perceived ways of thinking and concepts as well as cultural progressions in regards to trendy behaviors. One area that has held to the reflective type of form in the United States of America is RACISM. From the time of the first slaves ships docking on North American harbors, race has been the most influential factor in American society; from colonial times to present day 2016. For every person that says things have changed and improved significantly there is another person that can honestly say things are still the same from their own personal experience. Kevin Willmott’s film “Destination: Planet Negro!” captures the essence of this concept in the United States of America.
Originally released in 2013 (Now Available On All Platforms), “Destination: Planet Negro!” is a SCI-FI Diagnosis of realities in this country from it’s fictionalized setting of 1939 to a present day American society with a black president. Exceptional casting allows the viewer to embrace each person’s perspective as a black person coming from a time of Jim Crow and segregation in 1939 and seeing how one would react to American society today with it’s erasure or certain laws in regard to “racism” and separatism. A conjoining of the great black minds of the time; Dr. George Washington Carver, Booker T. Washington, W.E.B. Dubois, Mary Mcleod Bethune and other prominent blacks of time came together to solve the “Negro Problem” in the country to make life better for black people.
After many suggestions they all agree to go to another planet to inhabit the place for black people. Logically this would sound somewhat out of reach, but one must look at it from the perspective of black people living in this time. 1939 was a time when black people were lynched, jailed, murdered, burned alive and simply treated as second class citizens simply because of the color of their skin. The color of their skin was the deciding factor in their place in American society; fast forward to 2016 and this is still the case. The three main characters played by Kevin Willmott, Danielle Cooper and Tosin Morohunfola allow the audience to see the two worlds through their eyes and thus develop a deeper perspective as to how although things have changed in this country significantly in regard to the treatment of blacks as citizens in this country, not much has changed in a larger context to the lives of black people. 
Many of the same societal ills present in 1939 still exist in a different, sometimes camouflaged form today in 2016. The characters played by Trai Byers and Samra Teferra bridge the gap between the travelers of 1939 with today’s complex American society. 
Through timeless symbolism, comically hysterical situations and a simplistic delivery of reality, “Destination: Planet Negro!” explores the concepts of racism and how it still exists in a “changed” American society. Kevin Willmott, (University of Kansas Film Professor) the writer and producer of “Destination: Planet Negro!” discussed the film, the black experience in American society in correlation with this film and upcoming projects with ESHE Magazine. In addition to “Destination: Planet Negro!” Willmott has 10 other film credits in which he has either written, produced, acted and/or directed. Most recently Willmott was also a co-writer of Spike Lee’s highly acclaimed “CHI-RAQ.”
LISTEN TO THE DISCUSSION WITH KEVIN WILLMOTT BELOW:
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