This is an excerpt from my book BLACK, please leave a comment and share your opinion.
I used to watch The Ten Commandments every Easter weekend on ABC. That was just part of the rhythm of the season. I was probably around eleven the first time I saw it, and for the next twenty years, I watched it religiously, pun intended. It was more than just a movie. It felt sacred, like another form of church. I knew the lines. I knew when the commercial breaks were coming. It was a whole thing.
At eleven, I wasn’t thinking about race. In my assimilated mind, I may not have had the capacity to recognize the subtleties of racism ingrained in what I was watching. I wasn’t questioning anything about the story. Moses was the hero, Pharaoh was the bad guy, and God was in control. That’s how it was presented, and I accepted it. I wasn’t wondering why ancient Egyptians were all played by white actors. I didn’t question the casting or the setting. I just took it all in like it was truth.
Charlton Heston was the voice of God’s will, literally. That deep, thunderous delivery? You couldn’t ignore it even if you wanted to. Heston didn’t just play Moses; he declared Moses into existence with every line. “Let my people go!” wasn’t a request, it was a command.
And as a kid, I bought all of it. I was hooked. His presence, his authority, the staff, the robes, it all hit. I wasn’t thinking about skin color or geography. I wasn’t doing historical fact-checking. I was just watching this towering figure who seemed chosen, special, divine.
It wasn’t until years later that I found out he was from the North Shore, from Wilmette. That blew my mind. All this time, I had imagined Moses coming down from the mountain, and turns out, he came down from Lake Avenue.
By then, I also knew Heston wasn’t just Moses. He had marched with Dr. King early on, and later became the face of the NRA. The same man who once demanded freedom on screen was later known for holding tight to his gun rights. The voice I had once seen as righteous started to sound different. Not wrong. Just more complicated.
And then there was Nefertiri. Anne Baxter’s portrayal of the Egyptian queen had me all the way locked in. I didn’t know the word “allure” at eleven, but I knew she was fine. Regal, dramatic, full of fire, she carried herself like she owned every scene. Even when she was scheming or throwing shade, I couldn’t look away.
She was the first woman I ever saw on screen who made power look feminine and dangerous at the same time. It wasn’t until later that I noticed how her story moved around men, two men that understood her power and influence. Still, she stuck with me. And yeah, she was another white woman in an African story. I didn’t question it back then. But now, I see how deep that casting choice really went.
Now let’s talk about my favorite character, Ramses. Played by Yul Brynner, bald head gleaming, chest out, strutting across the palace like he owned the Nile, and Ramses did. I know he was the villain, but he didn’t feel like one to me. He felt like power. Controlled. Confident. Regal.
Low key, I thought he was Black until I was an adult. Maybe it was his skin tone, the way he carried himself, or just the way he stood out against the rest of the cast. He wasn’t the white hero. And for a kid looking for someone to reflect back even a piece of themselves, that was enough. Even on my way to full assimilation, my bias was for Black people to ultimately win.
Of course, I learned later that Brynner wasn’t Black. But the fact that I thought he was says something. It says a lot about how starved we were for representation. Reflecting now, it was intentional to cast this exotic-looking white man through makeup and bronzer, playing villain, giving Blackness.
Then came the Nubians. The scene featuring the Nubian dancers occurs during Pharaoh Seti I’s jubilee celebration. This lavish event was designed to showcase Egypt’s grandeur and the Pharaoh’s power. I remember being excited, they looked like me. Dark-skinned. Black. But they didn’t speak. They didn’t matter to the story. They were just there for spectacle. It was the first time I saw Black joy on screen in that film, and even though it looked like celebration, it wasn’t ours. It was joy on someone else’s terms, in someone else’s palace.
Recently I was flipping through channels and landed on ABC. They were airing the production for the 52nd consecutive year. It was kind of like looking back at old church pictures, the ones where white Jesus hangs above a Black congregation. What I once took as truth, I now see as part of the larger story, a story where we had to search for ourselves between the lines. And over time, that search changed me.
I still believe in something. In spirit. In the power of Black resilience. In the God(s) my ancestors whispered to when nobody else could hear them. But I also believe in questions. In unpacking what we’ve been handed. In breaking the silence. The Ten Commandments didn’t give me that. Church didn’t give me that. Life did.
Dr. Daniel Black, professor of African American Studies at Clark Atlanta University said, “The creator created us, we created God.” I don’t think I need church or the cinematic spectacle of The Ten Commandments to reach my spiritual potential.
