I was really looking forward to seeing Raoul Peck’s take on James Baldwin’s words. I was NOT anticipating leaving the theater as a ghost, as my entire life was taken from me during the 90-minute visual and auditory masterpiece that is “I Am Not Your Negro”.
While there are many parts one could wax poetically about, one particular aspect became clear to me in the juxtaposition of old clips and new images presented by Peck.
In a clip from a 1920’s motion picture (the name has escaped me), a White slave owner is in the field playing hide-and-seek with Black slave girls. After the girls “surprise” the owner, they form a circle around her and play ring around the rosie.
If this distortion of slave times was not already disappointing to me, what appeared on the screen next made me consider just how purposeful this imagery was to rewriting history.
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