Forgetting the unforgettable–an American trait. So wrote James Baldwin in 1967 about Americans’ habit of forgetting what is unforgettable–racial history. What we cannot bear to look at, we do not look at. If we don’t see it, it didn’t happen. Like, the lynchings. The red lining. Inner city schools. Mass incarceration. Any reference in public to these historical events prompts panic, denial, amnesia, discounting. In private, it’s expletives. It seems that we just can’t have this talk.
Could a good movie start some serious conversation? Any one of at least a dozen movies on race in the last five years could do the job. Collectively, they absolutely should do the job.
A Niagara of films by and about African-Americans has cascaded forth: 12 Years a Slave, Selma, The Birth of a Nation, 13th, I Am Not Your Negro, Fences, Hidden Figures. Now Mudbound. These are not all “slave movies” whose violence people (understandably) have to avoid. But the emotional violence is (understandably) unavoidable, and we just have to face it.
Simultaneously in the print media, Ta-Nahisi Coates addressed us from The Atlantic, and we have heard from Michelle Alexander (The New Jim Crow), and Bryan Stephenson (Just Mercy), Michael Eric Dyson (Tears We Cannot Stop). Add to that the contribution of one white scholar, Jennifer Harvey (Dear White Christians). This year a revised and updated edition of Beverly Daniel’s Why Are All the Black Kids Sitting Together in the Cafeteria? appeared, with a new 79 page introduction.
An astonishing outpouring of heart to the country!
Can’t we connect with it??
Let’s at least connect with each other, shall we? Tell me if you have seen these movies, or read these books, and what they mean to you.
I’m going to do the same at my church, and I’ll get back to you with the results soon. Maybe I can start a study group dedicated to discussing these titles.