Whenever I try to reference Roger Guenveur Smith I always end up using the phrase “that really lightskinned guy with the ill cheekbones.” And no, I don’t mean Giancarlo Esposito, a common mistake considering both have been in multiple Spike Lee joints. In fact, Roger Guenveur Smith has been Spike Lee’s “color consciousness muse,” in films such as Malcolm X, Do The Right Thing, and Get on the Bus. In each of these films Smith’s racial ambiguity is used to to highlight racial tensions, make a point about skin color in the black community, or simply represent the shade spectrum of black folks. Roger Guenveur Smith earned a doctorate in history from Yale then wandered over to the Yale School of Drama, where he cultivated the kind of thespianism that has since become his strong suit. I think that his stage training is what has led to a few accusations of overacting in his television work , especially his turns in Oz and the ill-fated Panther (Angela Bassett was in his class at Yale and she has also been accused of the same). Like many c-listers, the overarching theme of Smith’s career has been a series of smaller film and television roles and critical praise for his stage work in pieces like A Huey P. Newton Story, Who Killed Bob Marley? and Inside The Creole Mafia, a stage show examining color classification in the black community. Perhaps Smith is too smart for television and blockbuster movies, and that’s ok with me; the black intelligentsia is always in need of someone who will bear the heavy cross of closely examining skin color through the performing arts. Unfortunately the audio is not synced with the video, but take a listen to this excerpt from Creole Mafia - my knee-jerk reaction is that we don’t need to be discussing color categorization in this day and age, but in reality it’s a conversation that the black community somehow still hasn’t successfully finished having.