The firm is working with Delcor, the third largest beauty company in the world. Like any savvy consumer brand, they’ve recognized that diversity is the future, and more specifically, black hair is a booming market they can’t ignore. They are looking to lay their claim through a strategic partnership that can corner the market in their favor. It’s the perfect payday scenario, and Marty loves a good check.

Devin Peebles is the fast-talking CEO of the booming black brand, (played the forever funny Keegan-Michael Key), who is in the process of negotiating a huge distribution deal that is going to make him very, very rich. He lives and breathes his product, and seemingly built his business out of nothing into almost 8-figure profits.

House of Lies
Photo: Michael Desmond/SHOWTIME

While on a friendly golf outing, Devin decides to put his hand into Rita’s hair,  in order to examine the length and width of her curls. It goes poorly.

After she recovers from almost knocking Devin out, Rita warns Marty about Devin being a fraud, and not “actually being black,” after he baits himself into a lie about a restaurant that doesn’t exist in Detroit. Marty shrugs it off — he hears her but isn’t quite convinced.

Rita’s suspicions are later confirmed when the team uncovers that Townsend isn’t black, and  he immigrated to the United States from South Africa. Devin is white, but he darkened his skin in an effort to get accepted to college and has been living a lie ever since.

Marty’s stuck in a predicament because the deal opens up a huge new business line, but ethically it’s wrong on every level and could have legal implications down the road. He sits down with Devin to try and have him come clean so they can clear up the situation, but Devin uses it as an opportunity to openly question Marty’s blackness.

 

At the deal-closing meeting, Marty crafts an elaborate plan that exposes Devin’s background and forces the Delcor CEO to remove him as Devin from the deal entirely and replace him with an actual black person.

 

LINES THAT MADE US LOSE OUR CHILL:

“Yeah I’m grabbing all of these (samples) for Tess. She get’s a little kinky in the morning, and I don’t mean the sex.”

– Doug

“He’s about to have a real black experience — unemployment.”

– Marty

“Like countless European colonizers before them, Delcor sees opportunity on this ‘dark continent’”

– Marty

REAL MOMENTS:

The big business of buying black

This episode finds Marty navigating the very real and very complex world of selling cultural experience and developing competence while maintaining creative control. Marty is aware of what’s happening and opting to take full advantage of it. Smart companies can’t ignore culture just because they don’t know about it or aren’t sure how to engage with it. There’s a lot of money to be made on every side, but the question of ‘who owns it and how much of it’ is one that will continue to be debated, especially as the traditional minority becomes the super majority. Cultural competence isn’t negotiable; it’s the only way to survive and thrive in the present and future.

The dangerous art of performing culture 

Michael Desmond/SHOWTIME
Photo: Michael Desmond/SHOWTIME

Devin  is a fraud, but it’s not just because he lied about his ethnicity. Being black isn’t something you can opt into; it’s a lived experience that has consequences and multiple forms of expression. Devin made a fortune off of his act, which he justifies by describing how many black people he’s employed and helped, and indicts Marty for not “helping the community.” He embodies the false notion that culture can be performed and then assumed, which creates a dangerous paradigm; Devin became black because of the perceived advantages professionally but incurred none of the risks that physically befall black people who have that distinction ethnically. He questions Marty’s blackness, but Marty doesn’t have a choice of being black or not. Devin created an identity then used it to exploit people and create a fortune in the process.

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