annabenedetti
like marbles on glass
I AM NOT YOUR NEGRO
In 1979, James Baldwin wrote a letter to his literary agent describing his next project, Remember This House. The book was to be a revolutionary, personal account of the lives and successive assassinations of three of his close friends—Medgar Evers, Malcolm X and Martin Luther King, Jr.
At the time of Baldwin’s death in 1987, he left behind only thirty completed pages of his manuscript.
Now, in his incendiary new documentary, master filmmaker Raoul Peck envisions the book James Baldwin never finished. The result is a radical, up-to-the-minute examination of race in America, using Baldwin’s original words and flood of rich archival material. I Am Not Your Negro is a journey into black history that connects the past of the Civil Rights movement to the present of #BlackLivesMatter. It is a film that questions black representation in Hollywood and beyond. And, ultimately, by confronting the deeper connections between the lives and assassination of these three leaders, Baldwin and Peck have produced a work that challenges the very definition of what America stands for.
At the time of Baldwin’s death in 1987, he left behind only thirty completed pages of his manuscript.
Now, in his incendiary new documentary, master filmmaker Raoul Peck envisions the book James Baldwin never finished. The result is a radical, up-to-the-minute examination of race in America, using Baldwin’s original words and flood of rich archival material. I Am Not Your Negro is a journey into black history that connects the past of the Civil Rights movement to the present of #BlackLivesMatter. It is a film that questions black representation in Hollywood and beyond. And, ultimately, by confronting the deeper connections between the lives and assassination of these three leaders, Baldwin and Peck have produced a work that challenges the very definition of what America stands for.
This is an extraordinary film. I became familiar with James Baldwin about four years or so ago in my literature classes, where I read his fiction, but it was detached from his history. One of his works, a short story called Sonny's Blues, remains with me to this day - but I didn't know him in the context of his times, I didn't know about his friendships with Martin Luther King Jr., Malcolm X and Medgar Evers. It wasn't until I saw this film, rich with archival footage, much of which I've never seen, that all the pieces starting coming together.
Samuel L. Jackson narrates the film using Baldwin's words, and when I was sitting in that theater listening to Jackson channeling Baldwin, I thought of TOL and the threads celebrating whiteness as something superior - and the utter unwillingness to recognize that there is, and has always been, white privilege in this country. So I challenge the alt-right here, past or present, active or lurking, to see this movie and allow yourselves to challenge your assumptions.
In the words of James Baldwin:
Not everything that is faced can be changed, but nothing can be changed until it is faced.
