'Sinners,' Saints, And The Renaissance Of True Black Excellence
‘Sinners,’ Saints, And The Renaissance Of True Black Excellence — What Michael B. Jordan And Delroy Lindo Reminded Us About Community, Legacy, And Love[Op-Ed]
He laid his head on Delroy Lindo’s shoulder.
At the 2026 Actor Awards, formerly known as the SAG Awards, we watched as Michael B. Jordan won for Best Actor, getting the recognition that bringing the characters Smoke and Stack to life deserved.
The night was magical.
Viola Davis opened the envelope and joyfully called his name.
But, before he kissed his mama and went on stage, he hugged Delroy Lindo and laid his head on his shoulder. Delroy spoke love into him. Then he went on stage, accepted his award, and said the things he wanted to say.
Love. Safety. Held. Home.
Later on in the night, when the cast of ‘Sinners’ won the award for Best Ensemble Performance, they went on stage together, but only the ELDER, Delroy Lindo, spoke. No one else. Not even the “star” of the film.
RELATED CONTENT: ‘Anointed’ — The Blackest Moments From The 32nd SAG Actor Awards
Honor. Humility. Reverence. Respect.
Those two moments were a portal.
They were both memory and future.
They showed us so much of what we have gotten away from in our race to achieve, and sadly, be accepted and deemed worthy by whiteness.
But that night, they demonstrated, like the movie, the beauty of how we moved with each other in the past, and a model for how we are to be with each other in the future.
That moment looked and felt like the ways we moved before integration became assimilation and before achievement turned into performing for acceptance, validation, and the white gaze.
It looked like how we moved when we knew that as a people we are beautiful, brilliant, and worthy, whether or not “they” accept or celebrate us.
It felt like a memory.
It was also a vision—modeling a future that could be if we return to centering ourselves and focusing on care and community.
Just a few weeks ago, we witnessed the Lindo and Jordan share an abhorrent experience while the world watched and proceeded to make excuses.
Thankfully, on the night of the Actor Awards, we got to see something different.
We saw what true Black Excellence actually is.
We talk a lot about “Black Excellence.” But somewhere along the way, the concept became untethered from what it actually is and became something else—a performance of humanity that is legible to whiteness.
A hollowed-out form of so-called excellence that asks us to be inhumane, distant, and uncaring, especially to each other, but that night we went home.
We watched the cast show the world what love, community, generational honoring, and care look like, and that success doesn’t change that for us.
We saw Viola Davis and Samuel L. Jackson’s joy in celebrating the next generation of actors getting to walk through doors they opened.
We saw Miles Caton’s wonder as he watched Michael B. Jordan take the award, showing a new generation what is possible and available for them.
We saw the whole cast defer to the elder instead of pushing him to the background.
But we saw even more.
In the embrace that Michael and Delroy shared, we got to see two Black men express the full spectrum of manhood, love, and humanity that is so often denied and denigrated.
If we know history, we know that Black folks were not allowed to comfort, show love openly to one another, or care for and comfort each other, even in the face of unspeakable horror. Our joy and love were forbidden.
That history made the way the cast was present with each other, and that embrace even sweeter.
I don’t believe our joy, rest, creativity, and humanity are “resistance” or “revolutionary”.
I find that teaching to be gross, false, and yes, even dangerous.
It dehumanizes us. It centers whiteness and makes their inhumanity our reason for living, creating, and doing what we do.
Black Joy is not resistance; it is love and remembrance.
Black creativity is not resistance, it is a demonstration and ongoing affirmation of our brilliance.
Our joy and creativity are not fodder for the revolution. They are not in relationship to whiteness, they are expressions of who we are. They are birthrights and a mandate to both be living legacies and remember who we are.
So during that award ceremony we watched them celebrate and saw a reminder of who and what home is. We saw Black people who love Black people and love being Black.
I have such a visceral response to Black folks who do not love Blackness and Black people.
I will never truly understand those of us who chase the approval of whiteness and would betray us for a dollar, the booby prize of proximity that doesn’t share true power or for a sliver of recognition from folks who only exploit and use us because they know that no matter what they say about us — we are excellent and what we create is profitable. They are unsafe and untrustworthy.
The trauma that created that dynamic is understandable, but if we will ever make it to the future, that must be removed.
As we work towards a world where the monsters of racism and greed are slain, I am grateful for Black folks who love Black folks.
That night, we saw it live and in living color.
They treated whiteness as irrelevant.
That is Black excellence.
It’s been said that we are experiencing a new Black Renaissance.
That night was a flashback. A mirror. A reminder of who and what home is.
As we move forward—in a world still trying to convince us we’re less, still trying to exploit us, still trying to erase us—we have a choice: keep performing for them, or return to us.
Delroy Lindo called the film “anointed.” I believe it. I’ve watched how it’s become a trip to the past to remind us who we are, what we are, and the magic and power we possess because they are real. They showed us that time is a construct and that we have access to the Ancestors and everything that they were, are, and created—and that we are to do that in the here and now.
So much was communicated in those few brief moments—but mostly for me what I saw was an invitation to return…and a reminder.
We got us. Always have…and if we pay attention and return to creating and loving and caring for each other, we always will.
RELATED CONTENT: Serving SwAG — From Teyana To Viola, The Black Celebs Who Owned The 2026 SAG Awards Red Carpet
Staci Jordan Shelton is a consultant and writer whose work sits at the intersections of identity, spirituality, healing, and liberation. She helps Black visionaries imagine and create new ways of working and creating powerful futures—rooted in Blackness, ancestral wisdom, and generative praxes for sustainable success and sovereignty.
