Blog number 2

 I am Not Your Negro

Film Maker: Raoul Peck

My first thought while watching this video was, why is our history not being taught like this. I realize that the specific content in this video would not be appropriate for young children, but the TRUE history should be taught in order to create change. Children grow up believing that racism is something that happened a long time ago and viewing the images on this screen were were EXTREMELY similar to scenes we are currently seeing on the news. This is the exact conversation that we had during class last Wednesday. What did you learn about racism as a child....I think it is time for a change, to open the discussion and face the facts. 

James Baldwin makes this statement towards the beginning of the movie: "It comes as a great shock, around the age of five or six or seven, to discover that Gary Cooper killing off the Indians, when you were rooting for Gary Cooper, that the Indians were you. It comes as a great shock to discover the country which is your birthplace and to which you owe your life and your identity has not in its whole system of reality evolved any place for you".

• The protests
• the abuse
• the dismissive nature of white people both the everyday, middle class white person and those in power
• the stereotypes

The scene that was described in the movie was again something that we are seeing today. I went back and forth about posting the pictures because they are graphic but in the end I decided that they need to be seen, we need to learn from our history and use it to become better!   Based on the images above, we have not done that 

"Apathy and Ignorance are the price we pay for segregation"

The documentary uses scenes from films, tv and commercials to show how this treatment was normalized in society.  They use films to make white people feel better about things.

 After a James Baldwin talks about how people are killing their siblings, their children and their lovers the movie jumps to a scene from Imitation of Life where a black woman is looking for her daughter to give her a rain coat and the daughter, who happens to be lighter skinned than her mother hides and when she is called out, she runs out of the class screaming that she hates her mother.

Baldwin discusses the meeting that he attended with Lorraine Hansberry to meet with Bobby Kennedy, trying to talk him into having the president make an appearance with a young girl attending school. This was declined .... Later in the film Baldwin says that Bobby makes a statement about a black man being president in 40 years. Baldwin frames it as "we will allow you to be president". Then they show images and clips of Barack and Michelle Obama. 

"Not everything that is faced can be changed but nothing can be changed until it is faced"

Throughout the movie Baldwin talks about his friends Malcom X, Medger Evers and Martian Luther King. He talks about their work, their similarities and differences and their deaths, including how he was informed of them and what he felt at that moment. 

  

After reading Meghann's blog I really was able to reflect and figure out where I am in this process of understanding and ask myself some questions. While I have no answers YET, I am willing to work to find some. As a child, I always had to understand WHY, why do we do math that way, why do I need to learn this... I am having a similar reaction why can't all people be prosperous and why does it benefit white people if others are not. This goes back to our conversations during the last class.... I grew up in a multicultural family, having black sisters and cousins I just knew them as my cousins and sisters, I knew they were black of course but to me that just meant they had a better tan ( It may sound bad, but as a child that is really the only difference that I noticed, and I was jealous). They were just my family.  (I know that we are supposed to keep our personal experiences to a minimum in the conversation but without them I have no point of reference, so that is where I need to start)

While I am not sure where this is going, I do now know there are differences and they are in the experiences, The experiences that I have and the trials that I have been through are statistically more positive. I have the upper hand walking into any given situation simply because of the way I look.

My cousin, who happens to be my best friend and my daughters god mother tells me stories all of the time about comments that people make, often times without knowing how offensive they are. " I love your hair, it is so ethnic.... can I touch it", " your skin is beautiful, where are you from",  "what are your parents"... I cannot even imagine having a random stranger ask me those questions. 

 Now... what do I do about this, where do I fit in to the solution? What do I need to ACTIVELY do to help this problem? I live my life without using color as a reference to judge...  (I hope that makes sense) but WHAT NOW??