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Monday, October 28, 2013
Troy Johnson's Book Reviews aalbc.com
Wallace Muhammad and his "good" friend, the Rev. Jim Jones
We are not being personal in showing this photo of Imam W.D. Muhammad and the Rev. Jim Jones who took a thousand North American Africans to their deaths in Guyana, S.A. Most of the Black leadership of San Francisco supported the Rev. Jim Jones down to the last drop of Kool Aid. Even his personal physician, Dr. Carlton Goodlett, publisher of the Sun Reporter. Can the devil fool a Muslim? No, not these days!
MGT: Women in the Nation of Islam
Your woman is your heaven, the only heaven you will know!--Hon. Elijah Muhammad
Heaven is at the feet of your mother!--Prophet Muhammad
Book Discussion: We Will Shoot Back--Armed Resistance in the Mississippi Freedom Movement
MALCOLM X GRASSROOTS MOVEMENT AND
FREEDOM ARCHIVES PRESENTS: A book discussion with Dr. Akinyele Umoja, Director of the Department of AfrIcan Studies of Georgia State University and Author of We Will Shoot Back: Armed Resistance in the Mississippi Freedom Movement. In We Will Shoot Back: Armed Resistance in the Mississippi Freedom Movement, Akinyele Omowale Umoja argues that armed resistance was critical to the efficacy of the southern freedom struggle and the dismantling of segregation and Black disenfranchisement. Intimidation and fear were central to the system of oppression in Mississippi and most of the Deep South. To overcome the system of segregation, Black people had to overcome fear to present a significant challenge to White domination. Armed self-defense was a major tool of survival in allowing some Black southern communities to maintain their integrity and existence in the face of White supremacist terror. By 1965, armed resistance, particularly self-defense, was a significant factor in the challenge of the descendants of enslaved Africans to overturning fear and intimidation and developing different political and social relationships between Black and White Mississippians. This riveting historical narrative relies upon oral history, archival material, and scholarly literature to reconstruct the use of armed resistance by Black activists and supporters in Mississippi to challenge racist terrorism, segregation, and fight for human rights and political empowerment from the early 1950s through the late 1970s. Please join us for two evenings of edutainment, resistance and radical movement building! Friday, November 8th 7:00pm East Side Cultural Center 2277 International Blvd., Oakland, CA Sunday, November 10th 4:00pm The Eric Quezada Center for Culture and Politics 518 Valencia St., San Francisco, CA *In Conversation with Walter Turner Light Refreshments available. SAVE THE DATES AND SPREAD THE WORD! |
Producer Kim McMillon calls for BAM papers for the Journal of Pan African Studies
Hello everyone,
Marvin X asked Itibari M. Zulu, the senior editor of The Journal of Pan African Studies, if we might promote our conference in the Journal of Pan African Studies as well as if I might act as a guest editor with Marvin. I spoke with Zulu last night, and we came to an agreement. The words, and thoughts of you all, our conference speakers, will comprise this special issue. Zulu stated that there is no word count at this point since they are online. We need to hand in all submissions by December 1, 2013. The reason for the December 1st deadline is we have to have enough time to read, edit, and post. The primary theme of this issue is approaching the 50th year mark of the Black Arts Movement. What would we have done differently? What needs to be said that has not been said? What difference did the Movement make? These are just questions that I would ask. They may not be the same for everyone. If your answers come out in a poem or prose, it does not matter because they are your answers. I would also like to do a roundtable discussion where we put a few questions out about the movement, and dialogue. You all are the iconic figures that made a difference. It is an honor just to hear your voices.
So, if everyone can send me a line or two about what they would like to do within the next week that would be excellent. It will help promote the Conference as well as create an incredible conversation on the Movement. Zulu is also including our call for papers in the next issue, and will promote on his site.
If there are any other journals that you think might be willing to carry our call for papers, please let me know, and I can send.
Also, we are putting together a promotional committee that will meet every Wednesday. If anyone has any ideas to help promote the festival, please let me know. Dr. Hare and Marvin X have truly written the book on how to get the word out, and I attend to be an apt pupil.
Thank you all.
P.S. If there are any articles on the Black Arts Movement that you have already written, and have the copyright so that we could reprint, please let me know. I want to look at the possibility of republishing articles if it is a good fit for the issue.
Dr. Nathan Hare's letter to Kim McMillon, producer of the Black Arts Movement Conference at UC Merced
Kim,
With Marvin you have the master in guerilla promoting. As for me I used to be up on those matters, but these days I don’t know the what of it, let alone the who, and they don’t know me, or/and think I’m deceased. This goes also for the people at The Black Scholar, as I didn’t bother with them anymore after agreeing to send them a couple of article sin 1978. The executive-editor – Bob Chrisman had kicked himself up and Robert Allen - not to be confused with Allen Ross – had moved on mostly to other things, so the editor handling my copy left in fourteen errors in an article called “War on the Black College.” I think they later got rid of him for other malfeasance. I used to take copy and find as many as four errors in an article after the editorial and clerical staff had finished copy-reading them. I had a course in copy-reading at Northwestern University’s renowned Medill School of Journalism, where I was enrolled fulltime for a year (January-December, 1959), while a part-time typist in the office of the white editor of the Journal of Asian Studies and acquiring the dream of someday editing a Journal of Negro Studies. I was the only black person in the class. The professor wouldn’t allow me to use examples from black newspapers such as the Chicago Defender, on grounds that it was too easy to find errors there.
However, Sonia Sanchez could get anything she wanted in there. Probably also Ishmael Reed. I understand they come out only quarterly now, so you’d have to get it in fast to make an issue before March, though it’s possible as they probably still run behind schedule. By the way, Jet used to work and want copy four months in advance of the issue in which it would appear. I don’t know anybody there now. I used to stop by Johnson’s for lunch whenever I was in Chicago for any reason circa 1967 – 1975. Even in the late 1970s editors at Jet and Ebony used to call me in my office randomly. Aside from my withdrawing to work on my autobiography in recent years so many people have retired or died.
By the way, I was just thinking of the fact that I had more to do with black art than I had realized when I wrote belittling my part, until I recalled poet Kalamu ya Salaam’s inclusion of The Black Anglo Saxons in his article “A Comprehensive History of the Black Arts Movement. I recalled my invitation by the Organization of African Unity (OAU) to the First Pan African Cultural Festival, held in Algiers in 1969, and indeed that that was the lead article in the very first issue of The Black Scholar and that I got most of the other articles from the people at the Festival, including an interview of Stokely Carmichael, a former student at Howard, and his permission to revise and publish it as an article. My mind turned then to the fact that I was a member of the United States Committee (later North American Zonal Committee) of the Second World Black and African Festival of Arts and Culture (FESTACL) and we used to meet in Washington, D.C. every two months for two years choosing the artists and intellectuals who would be sent to Lagos. I ended up giving up my seat as a committee member to one of the artists, as I was very busy at the time and we did not have enough planes for all the artists who had applied and been accepted. It occurred to me that both chairmen of the U.S. Committee, Ossie Davis, the actor, and Jeff Donaldson (the artist best known for his “The Wall of Respect,” credited with starting the practice in African-American communities) are now deceased.
But It was Jeff Donaldson who insisted in 1975 that I and a noted black filmmaker represent the Committee at a meeting of the Committee on Civilization and Education and Lagos, but I got to New York and the meeting had been called off (we found out later there was a coup going on (1975). Anyway, a number of years later, when Jeff had been chosen to edit a special issue on Black Art for a major journal, he asked me to contribute a commentary. I forget whether I did or not or even what journal it was. I had met Jeff Donaldson one day in June, just after I had been fired from Howard and RAM (of BAM) busted in Philadelphia. I had been the lecturer for four sessions of a white teacher’s workshop on black culture at the University of Wisconsin at Milwaukee, instead of going back home after RAM was busted and I was fired from Howard the day after Muhammad Ali (I’d invited him to Howard against the wishes of the administration) was convicted of refusing the draft, and I’d called home and my wife said some people had been there looking for me.
Anyway, one afternoon I was walking down some street in Chicago, when two brothers approached me and introduced themselves like they had known me all of my life. I had heard the name of one of them, Gers;d Mcwrter. Because he was not only renowned for getting s Ph.D. at 23 from the University of Chicsgo, but active with Jeff Donaldson and Hoyt Fuller and Haki ‘n’em in starting what would become known as OBAC (the Organization of Black Art and Culture). The other brother was Jeff Donaldson. They introduced themselves and we talked and toured black militant Chicago until the wee hours of the morning.
As for getting people to the conference, publicity and flyers are helpful but will not be enough, especially to an unknown or inaccessible location. You have to lead them there. Thus organization. Lige Dailey, the psychologist and poet, was very good at organizing black male/relationships conferences in the Bay Area in the late 1970s. Work through all of the various organizations, fraternities, churches, black student unions, black studies departments and programs, notices in museums and on most wanted posters. But you have to induce the leaders of the various groups and entities to bring and send their members. Also, on the day or two leading up to the conference a big help will be to call people and remind them and try to get them to commit to coming out. There are volunteers for this, organizations where even white strangers go out and call people on your list, but you have no need for that as there are too many black student organizations that would be delighted to do this kind of thing for the black arts conference – and I’m not just talking about people in Merced – all Northern California. Quite a few people would come up from LA and southern California. Not to mention Oakland and Sacramento and Fresno and Stockton and the university towns. Speaking of black art, In the Sixties there would usually be a dinner and dance as the windup if not main event, but some of the people might spill over into the workshops.. There wasn’t any hip hop but we were hip. Speaking of black art, don’t mention dancing.
Here’s a link I came across for the article in which I reported on the First Pan African Festival of Arts and Culture held in Algiers in the summer of 1969. It was the lead article for the first issue of the maiden issue of The Black Scholar and was reprinted in New American Library’s Mentor paperback, New Black Voices, edited by Abraham Chapman, who discusses the Black Arts Movement and such particulars as OBAC and even a “black aesthetic.” More surprising – but something I hadn’t really surmised until recently – was out of well more than a hundred authors included in the volume, he chose to include a fellow named “Nathan Hare” in the thirteen listed on the cover, so maybe I almost made my poem rhyme.
Black Arts was a very big movement, it was huge.
Nathan
Black Bird Press News & Review: Academy of da Corner, the Most Dangerous Classroom in the world
Black Bird Press News & Review: Academy of da Corner, the Most Dangerous Classroom in the world
Parable of I Am Oscar Grant
The verdict was announced at 4pm. Guilty of involuntary manslaughter. With a gun enhancement, it carries five to fourteen years. City officials blocked the organizer's of the people's rally from using Frank Ogawa Plaza in front of city hall. They "staged" a rally of their own that was scarcely attended. The people's rally set up in the middle of the street at 14th and Broadway, the crossroads of Oakland, also site of Plato Negro's Academy of Da Corner. After blocking buses and cars for a short time, the organizers were convinced to move to the northwest corner of 14th and Broadway.
But soon 14th and Broadway was overflowing with people, including an abundance of media vans,videographers and photographers.
The MC stressed the rally would focus on youth expressions, later adults were allowed. Anyone could speak. It was a very democratic rally. It is amazing to see people's democracy in action, especially when black bourgeoisie democracy is so pitiful. Again, it was very shameful of Mayor Dellums to not allow the citizens of Oakland to rally at Frank Ogawa Plaza. We remember Frank Ogawa and he was one of the very best Oakland City Councilmen. We know he is turning over in his grave at the disrespect shown Oakland citizens by the Dellums administration. We heard the Mayors remarks at his press conference, speaking of abstract notions of globalism, yet he cannot connect what is being offered youth in Iraq, Afghanistan, Pakistan and Yemen, as a solution to problems in America in general and Oakland in particular. When media persons interviewed me, I basically said the following: the youth of Oakland want justice, nothing more, nothing less. And don't tell me they cannot receive it when America can find the way to offer education, housing and jobs to insurgents and "terrorists" in Iraq, Afghanistan, Pakistan and Yemen. They talk of setting up judicial systems in these lands but cannot convict a cold blooded murderer in America.
The young people expressed their grief and trauma at the light sentence given to former BART police officer Johannes Mehserle. They expressed no fear of the "bitch" police. Indeed, several youth who took the mike are students from Academy of Da Corner. Former City Councilman Wilson Riles, Jr. begged me to take the mike but I declined. I feel better passing out literature with my point of view, which I did. When media persons interviewed me, I basically said the following: The youth of Oakland want justice, nothing more, nothing less. The called the police outside agitators since most of them do not live in Oakland, their children do not attend schools in Oakland.
Imagine, the major growth industry in California is the Department of Corrections that mainly incarcerates young black and Latino men. As one youth said at the rally, the prison system is murder, for it castrates youth and families, yet most of the incarcerated are there for petty crimes or crimes for which no proper white man would be jailed with legal representation, additionally they suffer lack of education, drug abuse and mental illness. Oscar Grant senior is incarcerated, his son escaped only to fall victim to the police.
After talking with his aunt Fatty, we learned Oscar Grant, Jr. was no angel, but was working as a butcher and raising his daughter, thus he was trying to do the right thing but was murdered in cold blood by a beast in blue uniform.
It is no comfort he was not killed by another black man. Several youth spoke at the rally on the theme of black love and unity. I told media persons interviewing me that in the crowd and in our community are persons and families whose slain sons and daughters get no mention in the media, their killings never solved, so families suffer in silence and bitterness, because their is no rally for them, no trial, no homicide solved, nothing. There is nowhere for them to assuage their trauma and unresolved grief.
As I walked the crowd with a brother, he wondered whether anything was going to happen. I told him just wait til dark. And so it was, although I departed the area before dark, passing police amassed on the back streets.
There was looting and arrests. Massive police presence in the downtown areas, police from all the outlying areas, including CHP, Fremont, Berkeley, Richmond. The Footlocker was looted, obviously people needed shoes!
The anarchists were there dressed in black. Now we heard the anarchists at the G-20 meeting in Toronto, Canada were agent provocateurs. Unless the police justify need, 80 OPD will be laid off Monday, so we suspect they are part of the problem. Again, the youth said at the rally that the police are the outside agitators.
I also told those who interviewed me that Oscar Grant received justice when Lovelle Mixson killed four police shortly after they murdered Oscar, thus he executed people's justice. And Dr. Fritz Pointer said it best, "When Lovelle Mixson took out those four pigs, the masses enjoyed an 'obscene pride' after years of abuse under the color of law."
Personally, I abhor violence. I do not kill a fly in my house, nor a spider, a gnat. But there comes a time when human beings must stand and represent their humanity. We cannot be consumed by wild beasts. You want to hear Oscar's mother after the verdict, "My son was murdered, murdered, murdered!"
Yes, I am Oscar Grant. He is my son lost to self inflicted violence. He is my son caught between the police and his own black brothers. He is my son killed but never reported in the papers, never in the media, never in the court, a son silent in the night. I am Oscar Grant.
I want justice. I want education, not incarceration. I want employment with a living wage. I want housing fit for human beings. I am Oscar Grant.
--Marvin X
7/8/10
Parable of I Am Oscar Grant
The verdict was announced at 4pm. Guilty of involuntary manslaughter. With a gun enhancement, it carries five to fourteen years. City officials blocked the organizer's of the people's rally from using Frank Ogawa Plaza in front of city hall. They "staged" a rally of their own that was scarcely attended. The people's rally set up in the middle of the street at 14th and Broadway, the crossroads of Oakland, also site of Plato Negro's Academy of Da Corner. After blocking buses and cars for a short time, the organizers were convinced to move to the northwest corner of 14th and Broadway.
But soon 14th and Broadway was overflowing with people, including an abundance of media vans,videographers and photographers.
The MC stressed the rally would focus on youth expressions, later adults were allowed. Anyone could speak. It was a very democratic rally. It is amazing to see people's democracy in action, especially when black bourgeoisie democracy is so pitiful. Again, it was very shameful of Mayor Dellums to not allow the citizens of Oakland to rally at Frank Ogawa Plaza. We remember Frank Ogawa and he was one of the very best Oakland City Councilmen. We know he is turning over in his grave at the disrespect shown Oakland citizens by the Dellums administration. We heard the Mayors remarks at his press conference, speaking of abstract notions of globalism, yet he cannot connect what is being offered youth in Iraq, Afghanistan, Pakistan and Yemen, as a solution to problems in America in general and Oakland in particular. When media persons interviewed me, I basically said the following: the youth of Oakland want justice, nothing more, nothing less. And don't tell me they cannot receive it when America can find the way to offer education, housing and jobs to insurgents and "terrorists" in Iraq, Afghanistan, Pakistan and Yemen. They talk of setting up judicial systems in these lands but cannot convict a cold blooded murderer in America.
The young people expressed their grief and trauma at the light sentence given to former BART police officer Johannes Mehserle. They expressed no fear of the "bitch" police. Indeed, several youth who took the mike are students from Academy of Da Corner. Former City Councilman Wilson Riles, Jr. begged me to take the mike but I declined. I feel better passing out literature with my point of view, which I did. When media persons interviewed me, I basically said the following: The youth of Oakland want justice, nothing more, nothing less. The called the police outside agitators since most of them do not live in Oakland, their children do not attend schools in Oakland.
Imagine, the major growth industry in California is the Department of Corrections that mainly incarcerates young black and Latino men. As one youth said at the rally, the prison system is murder, for it castrates youth and families, yet most of the incarcerated are there for petty crimes or crimes for which no proper white man would be jailed with legal representation, additionally they suffer lack of education, drug abuse and mental illness. Oscar Grant senior is incarcerated, his son escaped only to fall victim to the police.
After talking with his aunt Fatty, we learned Oscar Grant, Jr. was no angel, but was working as a butcher and raising his daughter, thus he was trying to do the right thing but was murdered in cold blood by a beast in blue uniform.
It is no comfort he was not killed by another black man. Several youth spoke at the rally on the theme of black love and unity. I told media persons interviewing me that in the crowd and in our community are persons and families whose slain sons and daughters get no mention in the media, their killings never solved, so families suffer in silence and bitterness, because their is no rally for them, no trial, no homicide solved, nothing. There is nowhere for them to assuage their trauma and unresolved grief.
As I walked the crowd with a brother, he wondered whether anything was going to happen. I told him just wait til dark. And so it was, although I departed the area before dark, passing police amassed on the back streets.
There was looting and arrests. Massive police presence in the downtown areas, police from all the outlying areas, including CHP, Fremont, Berkeley, Richmond. The Footlocker was looted, obviously people needed shoes!
The anarchists were there dressed in black. Now we heard the anarchists at the G-20 meeting in Toronto, Canada were agent provocateurs. Unless the police justify need, 80 OPD will be laid off Monday, so we suspect they are part of the problem. Again, the youth said at the rally that the police are the outside agitators.
I also told those who interviewed me that Oscar Grant received justice when Lovelle Mixson killed four police shortly after they murdered Oscar, thus he executed people's justice. And Dr. Fritz Pointer said it best, "When Lovelle Mixson took out those four pigs, the masses enjoyed an 'obscene pride' after years of abuse under the color of law."
Personally, I abhor violence. I do not kill a fly in my house, nor a spider, a gnat. But there comes a time when human beings must stand and represent their humanity. We cannot be consumed by wild beasts. You want to hear Oscar's mother after the verdict, "My son was murdered, murdered, murdered!"
Yes, I am Oscar Grant. He is my son lost to self inflicted violence. He is my son caught between the police and his own black brothers. He is my son killed but never reported in the papers, never in the media, never in the court, a son silent in the night. I am Oscar Grant.
I want justice. I want education, not incarceration. I want employment with a living wage. I want housing fit for human beings. I am Oscar Grant.
--Marvin X
7/8/10
Review: 12 Years a Slave
OCTOBER 23, 2013- counterpunch.com
Making Racism Digestible for Racists
The Way Hollywood Frames Slavery
by RUTH FOWLER
If we wanted to applaud a movie for superb acting, for faithful and dedicated adherence to an original text, for a sensory and almost tactile aesthetic of complicated brutality, then we must look no further than Steve McQueen's '12 Years A Slave', the current darling of the film world, critically applauded almost universally across the board. Based upon Solomon Northup's 1853 slave narrative '12 Years A Slave', directed by a (black) British director, Steve McQueen, adapted by a (black) writer, Philip Ridley, and starring the incredible (black) actor Chiwetal Ejiofor, the movie itself is unusual in that its production team and cast challenges – or seems to challenge – the mainstream conventions of Hollywood whitewashing. I say "seems" to challenge because at its heart, I find this movie deeply conventional and troubling in its failure to engage with any message other than that slavery was brutal, that slavery was disgusting, that slavery was wrong. I'm echoing James Baldwin in his criticism of Harriet Beecher Stowe's 'Uncle Tom's Cabin' – "her book was not intended to do anything more than prove that slavery was wrong; was, in fact, perfectly horrible. This makes material for a pamphlet but it is hardly enough for a novel . . . ."
Unlike the white, Christian Stowe whose experience of slavery was obviously second-hand and fictionalized, Northup wrote about his own autobiographical experiences as a free-born black male kidnapped into slavery. However, like most slave narratives, his experiences are framed and filtered through a white lens. Specifically, Northup's own experiences are recorded "as told" to a white abolitionist writer, David Wilson. In this, he was not unusual. Scholars, including Henry Louis Gates, one of the consultants on the movie, have written extensively about the unreliability of slave narratives due to their frequent collaboration with white abolitionists, who were crafting stories intended to be consumed by a literate, white, sympathetic audience: the kind of people who had read, enjoyed and been moved by the "sentimentality" of Harriet Beecher Stowe's work, to whom Northup's own book is dedicated.
I err on the side of Baldwin: I find the diktat that slavery is bad too simplistic a message. I think the mainstream success of '12 Years A Slave' lies in the simple fact that once again, we have been provided with a work of art which does not challenge the dark heart of American racism, but simply reconfirms a moral that we all knew: slavery is a very bad thing. Of course, we have not been subject to McQueen's unique aesthetic on the subject before, nor Ejiofor's incredible acting, nor Ridley's excellent script, but watching '12 Years A Slave' is not revelatory in any way – certainly not to black American audiences, at least.
Solomon Northup is an educated, free-born, black man living in Saratoga, New York. He dresses like his white contemporaries, he talks like his white contemporaries, he expects – and receives – the same freedoms as his white contemporaries. By framing the slave's experience with an unexamined nod towards respectability politics, the movie sends a disturbing message which is echoed by Solomon's own lines on the slave ship going South, where he differentiates between he and his two educated free companions all of whom have been kidnapped into slavery, to the "other niggers" who are born into slavery, or who have been directly shipped over from Africa.
There is something deeply disturbing to me that if Hollywood cannot place at the center of its narrative a white male, it instead places a black male acting like a white male. My criticism is not focused towards the Director nor the Writer of this movie, nor towards the obvious fact that they are working from historically accurate material. My criticism, or rather, my disappointment in this fact stems from their understanding – their correct understanding – of the racial politics and dynamics of American society which are reflected in the tastes of the commercial, predominantly white, movie-going audience today. McQueen made a movie which is digestible for the racist, produced by Pitt's production company Plan B, complete with long list of famous white male stars – Brad Pitt, Michael Fassbender, Benedict Cumberbatch, Paul Giametti – who usually demand top billing, graciously allowingEjiofor the top spot, but not, apparently, his excellent female co-star Lupita Nyong'o. This allows the white liberal to talk proudly and short-sightedly about how "important" this movie is, overlooking the white supremacy of the cast and production team, and allowing Manohla Dargis to over-optimistically declare in The New York Times that, "It may be the [movie] that finally makes it impossible for American cinema to continue to sell the ugly lies it's been hawking for more than a century".
In Baldwin's stunning essay "Everybody's Protest Novel", he examines Harriet Beecher Stowe's "laudable determination to flinch from nothing in presenting the complete picture". The same could be said, here, of McQueen's direction, his long hours in rehearsal, his respect for the original text, his diligent research with respectable scholars such as Henry Louis Gates "…an explanation which falters only if we pause to ask whether or not her picture is indeed complete, and what constriction or failure of perception forced her to so depend on the description of brutality – unmotivated, senseless – and to leave unanswered and unnoticed the only important question: what it was, after all, that moved her people to such deeds" (emphasis mine)
We might say that Northup's narrative need not answer these questions: after all, it is a first person narrative, not a fictional novel. These are the words of the oppressed, not the liberal, guilt-ridden white skinned oppressor with a political motive. The Director and Writer, two black males, do not have the urgent weight of their ancestors' guilt whispering in their ear, forcing them to confront – or rather, avoid – difficult truths. Yet the white lens surrounding Northup's original narrative 'as told to' David Wilson, the white scribe, is mirrored here by the white lens of Hollywood, the production team, the demands of commercial viability, the knowledge that this movie is not, really, that far removed from 'The Help' in terms of prioritizing and excusing the white experience within the framework of slavery. For all of Fassbender's hideous, plantation-owning, foul, drunken, raping savagery (What a role! What an actor! And such "bravery" of him to take this challenging part!) we are provided with the delicate foil of Pitt's morally upstanding white savior, Bass. For the kind but weak and morally ambiguous Ford (played by Cumberbatch) who obviously finds some aspects of slavery reprehensible, but nonetheless remains complicit within it, we are shown the dehumanizing and difficult paradoxes which play out in Northup's own character, which culminates in his whipping Patsey, at his Master's request.
Northup repeatedly chooses survival over ethics, and in doing so, deprives us of the right to regard him as a hero. He instead earns our sympathy as a complex and flawed human being. Let's think about that for a moment. One of the few main characters in a mainstream, commercial Hollywood film to be black, is a character whom we do not actually like, and cannot entirely respect. We can, however, pity him.
While it is profoundly moving and distressing that we both see and feel Northup's humiliation and his dehumanization at the hands of white supremacy, while it is entirely accurate that he can be rescued only by his white friends from the North, the narrative's failure to reflect upon the significance of a flawed protagonist in an industry which adores those it can place upon a pedestal, its George Clooneys and its Brad Pitts, ensures that "the black man has functioned in the white man's world as a fixed star, as an immovable pillar" – and that he continues to function in this role, preserved, petrified, immutably fixed there by Hollywood and our obsession with ourselves as white people. Instead, what is prioritized is the role of the white man in Northup's liberation, and by extension, that of all slaves. It allows us whites to watch and applaud this movie, to be OK with the horrors perpetuated by our people because they are cancelled out by Brad Pitt's quiet five minutes of goodness, and the complicated and broken black male protagonist whom Pitt saves and returns home to a loving family who act just like white people!
This report from the pit reassures us of its reality and its darkness and of our own salvation; and "As long as such books are being published," an American liberal once said to me, "everything will be all right". (Baldwin)
Many people will argue with my reading of this movie. They will declare that it is not the role of a movie to educate, to challenge, to define history, to shape convention. A movie is an aesthetic experience, not a political commentary on history, on politics, on culture, on race. What Steve McQueen did was to expertly, and uncomfortably, portray the horrors of being a slave to the ignorant, selfish white masses using the historical account of a slave to do so. But the responsibility we have to the tremendous weight of slavery, the overwhelming burden of racism we still labor under in a society which has black men incarcerated at nearly six times the rate of whites, which kills a black male every 27 hours, where a young black teenager's senseless murderer can be acquited, a life lost over a bag of skittles and a hoodie, dictates that this is not enough.
There's no difference between the North and South. There's just a difference in the way they castrate you. But the fact of the castration is the American fact. If I'm not a nigger here and you invented him, you, the white people, invented him, then you've got to find out why. And the future of the country depends on that. Whether or not it's able to ask that question. (Baldwin)
Steve McQueen has given us an impressive achievement: a celluloid journey into America's heart of darkness, its under-examined Holocaust. But by failing to pose the question of 'Why?', by failing to portray Northup as the impressive individual that he became, aiding fugitive slaves and lecturing against slavery – professions which, no doubt, held little literary and political interest for white abolitionists – McQueen's movie has failed to deserve the praise it's been showered with. Ultimately the movie fails to achieve anything apart from turning a problematic book into a problematic movie, a movie which elides difficult and important questions, which is peppered with ellipses (the perspective of black females is, to my mind, unexamined even with Patsey and Eliza's small but pivotal roles), and ensures that black people will once again be seen on screen as slaves, as maids, as cotton pickers, as victims, as a race of people incapable of articulating their own oppressions, rescued only once they put on a bonnet, learn how to hold a teacup properly.
It is only with our generous approval, with gushing reviews, with the pompous declaration by white liberals that the movie we funded, based on a book we half-wrote, published and disseminated, is worthy of an accolade we created, do we white people authenticate the experience of our black brothers and sisters, avoiding the question in our hearts: "What white people have to do, is try and find out in their own hearts why it was necessary to have a nigger in the first place, because I'm not a nigger, I'm a man..."
+++++++++++++++++++
Ruth Fowler is a journalist and screenwriter living in Los Angeles. She's the author of Girl Undressed. She can be followed on Twitter at @fowlerruth.Sunday, October 27, 2013
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