Just Five More Minutes

How upholding white mediocrity fast tracked a fascist reality.

Feb 08, 2026

I’m not asking you all this time to hear me out because it’s clear that most have had a hard time listening. So I’ll speak.

Recently, I attended an open-mic style film screening where I submitted my short film. Excited not only to share my work with friends and strangers, but also to see the work of other filmmakers, I headed downtown to the ticketed event. Upon arrival, I checked in with my name and film credentials, “Jada Henry, Demo121”.

“We don’t see you on the list. You must not be programmed.”

“That’s strange, I submitted and didn’t receive a rejection email that said I wasn’t to be programmed. Who can I speak to about this?”

A scrawny archetypal Bushwick “filmmaker” TM scuffles up to me. “Uh, yeah, I got busy and uh, yeah, I just couldn’t program your stuff.”

“Because?”

“…Length?”

Uncertain if his own words were true, he waddled away. I remained at the screening to support and see what other filmmakers programmed were doing, though mainly to show thanks to friends who had paid to see my allegedly programmed film. Let me get specific, I cannot stand a coward or a weird man and after mentally sifting through the bullshit explanation I’d been offered then sitting through many white, quirky, and some nonsensical films, I confirmed what I hate the most — compliance in upholding white mediocrity upholds white supremacy at the detriment of brown and black people directly, and subsequently everyone as a whole.

Whoa….big jump you’re thinking, huh? Just stay with me in this coded experience.

This example may be microscopic in the larger point I’m going to make, but it’s foundational to understanding how this recipe is a huge contribution to the world we’re living in today, both politically, socially, and culturally.

Sitting in a room watching several films of mediocre, largely white filmmakers prompted a spiraling thought of underlying frustration that we’re all negatively impacted by yet remain sedentary in a damned status quo.

This is not to generalize art coming from white individuals as standard, but rather to highlight the extension of our society’s visibility and grace toward white society’s work in arts, entertainment, society, and politics, even when distinctively underwhelming or unqualified in contribution. Yes, we all have different journeys and perspectives in fostering culture, and we all must start somewhere, but if the plight to creating cultural foundations is exploitative, appropriative, or partial, I’m more than disinterested; I’m unwelcoming to it, especially when its consumption and interaction depend on my black time, my black kindness, and my black effort.

II.

I distinctly remember a discussion in my Art History undergrad course where my professor prompted the question, “Is it necessary to teach the works of Pablo Picasso, given his controversial background of exoticism and misogyny?”

When coming up with an assertion, I thought, “Why subject students to the foundational teachings of an exploitative individual just because he’s a talented European? Are there not other artists, European or not, who are talented, progressive in exploration, and not exploitative in their practice or life?” Short answer? Yes. Though the western world remains congratulatory of Eurocentric “brilliance” and continuously ignores the fruitful teachings and perspectives of non-European thinkers, artists, and culture makers of our time.

I think about this memory specifically because of how alone I was in my sentiment, not when compared to my professor, but surprisingly, the sentiments of my peers. I would like to note that my class was diverse, but the most outspoken and displeased counterargument I received came from a black woman in defense of Picasso. To paraphrase her sentiments, she thought it to be unfair to “cancel” Picasso post mortem due to his problematic past. In her words, it’s important to keep teaching his work because it’s foundational to our understanding of art.

Countering that, I challenged her assertion as a devotion to Eurocentric perspectives. I suggested we culturally replace the immense amount of pride we have for his works with a respectable acknowledgement of his artistic contribution, while also dedicating our education toward other artists who culturally have just as much impact, without the eclipse of exoticism and misogyny intertwining their contributions. Sure, I don’t find it fitting to fully erase Picasso, but good God, he is not our savior.

In the article “Problematic Picasso,” written by Liv Goodbody, she examines my point in the life and work of Pablo Picasso, “Picasso’s artistic experimentation with form, composition, and perspective is undeniable, and his work is rightly celebrated for its innovation. However, beneath the surface lies a darker narrative; Picasso’s exploration of women reminding us that his creative genius was deeply intertwined with a damaging view of the feminine. In this sense, Picasso’s art cannot be disentangled from the complexities of his relationships with women, where admiration was so often shadowed by violence and objectification.”

Is this the legacy we should be fighting so harshly to uphold? Goodbody continues to examine his equally exploitative relationship with African art,

“Picasso’s artistic practice was deeply shaped by non-Western art, particularly African and Iberian influences. His fascination with these cultures is evident in some of his most iconic works, notably Les Demoiselles d’Avignon, where two figures are modelled after African masks. These elements marked a radical departure from the classical Western traditions that dominated European art at the time. Picasso’s exposure to African masks and sculptures in Parisian museums offered him an alternative to Western perspectives on form, anatomy, and representation. However, while these influences were pivotal in the development of modern art, Picasso’s use of non-Western forms is not without ethical and cultural implications. His engagement with African and Iberian art, like many of his contemporaries, was fundamentally extractive and often problematic.

Picasso’s appropriation of these forms was part of a broader movement among European artists of the early 20th century, who viewed non-Western art through an exoticising and reductive lens. Rather than recognising the deep cultural, religious, and social significance embedded in African and Indigenous artistic traditions, Picasso, among others, treated these forms as visual material for their own aesthetic experimentation. African masks, in particular, were seen as symbols.”

Only does black, brown, indigenous, non-white art more generally receive recognition when made available for aesthetic experimentation.

Where it is “necessary” to teach and study the art of contentious white figures like Pablo Picasso, I say it is necessary to disallow the normality of narrow cultural perspectives, especially when said influences are uncredited or unfairly framed as unimportant. The fraught ego associated with the indulgence of white works has created a vast disillusionment within our world. My two early points tie to my larger understanding that the reason we have world leaders and influential powers who are inept, incompetent, and dangerously irresponsible is that we uphold white mediocrity in the smallest forms and eventually reward it in the biggest ways.

III.

When I think about my frustrations that frankly kept me still from writing for months due to the overwhelming nature of immoral sociopolitical turbulence, I think about the implications. There is nothing profound about the current United States administration yet we are subject to its failures in which are founded by white supremacy, imperialism, and bigotry. By prioritizing white fragility and capital comforts, we actively perpetuate the actions of our leading powers with whom we do not align. We offer them a stage in which they revel in our attention and curiosity. Our willingness to remain comfortable with atrocity until it directly affects us has allowed fascist regimes like our own to prevail. This fascism — It cracks stability, erases visibility, belittles identity, and unfastens the fabric of faith that enables hope. Its current expansion germinates through the widely accepted nature of white mediocrity, once joked about and positioned as mere political entertainment, but now remains key to propagating othering¹.

I encourage you to read Kirk Baltimore’s article, “War on DEI: White Fragility’s Shameful Obsession With Black Excellence,” where he explains how white fragility permeates. Baltimore explains:

White mediocrity, by nature, is fragile and unable to stand on its own. And that’s why it attempts to dismantle the floor so that no one can stand independently. It’s like snatching the PlayStation controller from your younger brother when he’s mercilessly beating you at a game you taught him to lose. No one is more obsessed with those who are winning the game than the creators of the game itself. The USA was built on oppression, and despite ongoing inequality, segregation, the wealth gap, and unequal access to resources, those who have been disenfranchised, exploited, and oppressed continue to outshine those who designed the systems. As a result, there are continuous attempts to adjust the playing field with more white-tear safeguards, reinforcing oppression and helping to cope. The latest safeguard is Trump’s “merit-based” policies that will ensure that cisgender white men’s self-worth can stay intact in corporate and federal America.

What is “merit-based” coming from a racist, rapist, fascist, mediocre white man who was handed one million dollars as a “starting point in life?” The Trump administration is certainly practicing what it’s preaching. They sure weren’t entertaining a DEI hire out of Tim Scott. Perhaps a coon stipend in the form of shares in Trump Vodka and Trump Steaks would suffice. The “merit-based” bullshit rhetoric is vehemently rooted in passive aggressiveness; the implication is “whites only.”

When you instill white people with the belief that their mediocrity is above that of any contribution from a minority, you instill them with the false belief of superiority. Not only do you create unqualified people who are overzealous, but you allow them to think they can shape the world. More so, during economic downturns and social strife, false beliefs of American exceptionalism², the othering of white Anglo-Saxon Christian America as superior, generally made on the basis of the country’s founding, are emboldened, and scapegoating runs rampant.

IV.

“Just five more minutes” is a colloquial phrase that we use to express a requested extension of time against a deadline. Although I cannot locate the creator who originally expressed this sentiment at the time of this writing, I would like to share white America’s usage of this phrase in a sociopolitical context. The phrase “just five more minutes”, vocalized to the backdrop of civil unrest and turbulent social movement, is exemplary of both white liberal and conservative mindsets.