Who is Keisha?

"Since the 80s, there was a very particular type of beauty, a type of light-skinned woman that was being promoted in music videos. Taral Hicks (the actress who plays Keisha, Tommy's girlfriend in Belly) was not that type of woman… The fact that Taral is a dark-skinned woman and made even darker by the way she is filmed (bathed in blue light) is not an accident at all. Her color is celebrated as much as her large size; she is taller than most of the characters in the film. Her strength and physicality do not detract from her femininity, or her beauty - director Hype Williams portrays her strength, physical presence, and dark skin as integral to Keisha's desirability.

One of the highlights of the film takes place when we see Keisha arguing violently with Tommy on the phone because he is cheating on her, only to end up being coaxed as soon as he gets home to reconcile on the pillow in an intensely heterosexual sex make-up scene. However, while she was calling Tommy on his phone, very worried about his well-being (he is a thug), he is on his side in a car with Kiona (an underage girl)... After that we see Keisha shopping with Tionne and asking for relationship advice on what to do about Tommy. Then Keisha is arrested during a raid at her home by the FBI who investigated Tommy's involvement in drug trafficking. Finally, Keisha is abandoned by Tommy while he goes on the run to hide, the FBI pressures her to get Tommy but, refusing to denounce him, she ends up in prison in his place for complicity. It is Tionne who pays his bail. And, if that wasn't enough, we see Keisha defend herself when she's attacked in her own home by Shameek (Method Man) who's out to kill Tommy. While each of these scenes are significant moments that illustrate varying levels of strength, vulnerability, loyalty, pain, sensitivity, and perseverance in this character, they also consistently depict a woman whose environment, decisions, and motivations are a reaction to those of the man she loves. She's always on the receiving end of her lover's selfish and thoughtless actions.

Although Tommy decides to change his life, nothing in the film shows Tommy considering for a moment what Keisha has had to endure. Tommy never apologizes to Keisha, he never shares his new life with her, he does not invite her into his new journey as the responsible man she has always hoped for. Keisha's final scene is not an opportunity for redemption like Tommy's or an escape to a new life in Africa like Sincere and Tionne but rather a mad dash for survival. She is brutally attacked by an enemy of Tommy's and in defending herself she kills the intruder.

So what happens to Keisha? She is traumatized, left alone with blood on her hands. What happened to Keisha? What happens to a woman who is repeatedly betrayed, abandoned, incarcerated, and assaulted? What happens to a woman who puts her lover at the center of her world when that lover leaves? What happens to a woman who has no girlfriends or support systems to hold her up when the world tries to break her? What happens to a woman who loves someone who plays games with the state, with her life, with the lives of others? What happens to a woman who has learned to fight for someone else but has no one who will fight for her?

I'd like to believe that after this Keisha will finally learn to become a "ride-or-die" but for herself and no one else."

Translated and adapted from English - written by Amanda Parris

https://therideordieproject.com/2014/12/01/what-happened-to-keisha/amp/