When Spectacle Masquerades as Dialogue: From Jubilee to CNN
Jubilee’s Surrounded episode with Amanda Seales made headlines for its premise: one progressive voice placed in a room with 20 young Black conservatives. On paper, it sounds like an opportunity for dialogue. In practice, it was something else entirely: a spectacle.
Amanda came armed with history, data, and truth. She spoke about reparations, systemic racism, disinvestment, and media ownership. Yet, instead of engaging her arguments, the young conservatives leaned on tired right-wing slogans — “Black culture is toxic,” “just work harder,” “racism doesn’t exist.” These ideas are not born from Black intellectual traditions or deep engagement with community struggle; they’re borrowed talking points designed for proximity to whiteness.
The result wasn’t dialogue. It was a gladiator match staged for viral clips. Jubilee’s format thrives on conflict, not resolution. It reduces the complexity of Black liberation debates to entertainment value, leaving viewers with fragments instead of depth.
This isn’t new. We’re seeing the same flattening of history and struggle in mainstream outlets too. Take Jillian Michaels’s recent comments on CNN about slavery. Michaels, a Jewish and queer public figure, tried to minimize the enduring impact of slavery with shallow comparisons and false equivalencies. Her remarks reflected the same lack of critical engagement: parroting a surface-level take rather than grappling with history, structural oppression, or the lived experiences of Black communities.
Both Jubilee and CNN remind us of the dangers of platforming spectacle over substance. When you pit Amanda Seales against 20 rehearsed talking points, or when you let Jillian Michaels trivialize slavery on live television, you’re not creating space for critical thought. You’re staging a performance — one that entertains, provokes outrage, and drives clicks, but does little to deepen public understanding.
The tragedy is that these conversations matter. We do need spaces where Black voices — across the spectrum — can wrestle with questions of justice, freedom, and responsibility. We do need honest discussions about the legacies of slavery, systemic racism, and what liberation demands of us. But that requires formats that prize depth over spectacle, listening over soundbites, and truth over performance.
When the media chooses clicks over clarity, when it reduces our deepest struggles to gladiator matches or throwaway hot takes, we all lose.