Movie / Documentary Review: I Am Not Your Negro [Amazon - Documentary]
Ref: I Am Not Your Negro [Amazon - Documentary]
I have to admit that I have gone through this documentary several times in order to be able to write this review and have done more research and “refresher-work” on my history in order to be able to understand the documentary and it’s contents better.
Here are a list of links that I found both helpful and beneficial to refresh on the content displayed within this documentary:
Medgar Evers - http://www.biography.com/people/medgar-evers-9542324
This documentary focuses primarily on James Baldwin’s incomplete essay Remember this House and discusses his perspective on the Black American experience in reference of his close research and “witness” of the lives of Medgar Evers, Malcolm X, and Martin Luther King Jr. Baldwin’s writing has always been heavily involved in the discussion of events and happenings that are, if not parallel but reoccurring from the time of all three men to present day and I think that it is relevant and also helps to add more credibility and value to this documentary because it shows us how important history is, that history is not in the past, but is still continuing to affect us even now. As quoted from the doc: “history is not the past. It is the present. We carry our history with us”.
Technicalities and Functioning
Being it as a documentary and not a narrative fictional piece or anything of the sort, I felt that it was put together very nicely. There were beautiful b-roll shots against Samuel L. Jackson’s narration from Baldwin’s novel that I thought helped to enhance and bring out more emotion and intention from his writing. Not only this but actual footage or the found footage of his speeches and his participation of being a witness during his time of research and journeying helped to add more depth and dynamic to the film as a whole. A strong orator and a scholarly author and playwright, the way that he speaks allows the audience to be absorbed into his words. He speaks with precision and in a way that allows you to feel what he feels (at least in my opinion) and so that helped immensely in bringing out more character and color of the doc.
Content
Really the doc itself has explored and went into great detail about relevant relevant content but I will highlight a few of them that stood out to me (and whatever I wrote on my notebook whilst watching the film).
From the first quote, Baldwin questions his existence and his humanity in the reality of America (in contrast to his life in Paris, which he goes into great detail in his essay entitled: “Equal in Paris” and possibly a few others) as a Black American. He implies a rhetorical question of: “what am I to you? If I am not human?” and makes a good point in stating that despite not being against Black Americans, specifically or with the intention to be against them, it is the apathy and ignorance that still holds the ideology high. You may not personally hate Black people, but your ignorance or your failure to understand them and the lives of Black americans is what creates this “beastification” of the Black American (and he goes on about this in the doc so I won’t say so much on it).
His entire debate on this idea that we should not see color and this constant denial of racial tensions. It is constantly being pushed aside, we don’t wanna talk about race, we don’t see color, color isn’t important, we aren’t racists, etc. But Baldwin makes the great statement illustrated from quotes 4 and 5 that color DOES matter and that just because you don’t see color does not mean that other people are not being affected by it every single day of their lives. Institutions may not be outrightly racist or discriminatory against people of color, specifically Black Americans, but they do show unfair or unequal treatment of institutions and establishments that are SUPPOSED to help, nourish, and support said people. Things like schools, and I’ve attended inner-city public schools that have not had the same amount of funding support and or financial support to afford textbooks and even toilet paper for students whilst children in public schools out in suburbs (where the majority is of white students) have better funding, more programs and classes offered to students and better schooling conditions overall. Both quotes 4 and 5, again, it asks the bold question of “how can you trust a system that has ALWAYS had it’s back turned to you?”
In the media, there is a constant misrepresentation or a fabricated life of Black Americans being portrayed where life is peachy and people have money and no one is suffering, a reality that does not exactly exist (at least in reference to Baldwin and the majority of the treatment of Blacks in America today). And there’s always this constant obligatory inclusive speech of people of color and I’d like to point out how upsetting I find it and how fake it really feels. In order to be in the green, advertisements for companies and industries of things like beauty products, technology and so on, have this concept of “being inclusive” and it’s not only for racial inclusion at this point but also gender inclusion. Nowadays, companies are making it so that they are showing more of an inclusive media form that involves racial and gender minorities, and I don’t it as a bad thing, I honestly believe that we should be able to have more inclusive media forms but genuinely. Companies are using their inclusiveness give off this slightly pretentious and boasting aura that like “hey look at me, we have gay or trans people in our advertisements, we’re not anti-LGBTQ, we’re so good” or like “hey look at us, we have people of color in our videos and stuff so we’re not racists okay?”.
[And I’d probably get a lot of hate for this but I just feel like many companies that are trying to be inclusive are not as GENUINELY inclusive as I thought they’d be.]
It’s more for the intention of getting recognition from the public or this reassurance of NOT being the bad guy that is so constantly being represented throughout this “fake inclusiveness” that I have noticed within the media of today.
[And I may be wrong or I may be right, but I just feel like it’s not genuine at all.]
I have to admit that I have gone through this documentary several times in order to be able to write this review and have done more research and “refresher-work” on my history in order to be able to understand the documentary and it’s contents better.
Here are a list of links that I found both helpful and beneficial to refresh on the content displayed within this documentary:
Medgar Evers - http://www.biography.com/people/medgar-evers-9542324
This documentary focuses primarily on James Baldwin’s incomplete essay Remember this House and discusses his perspective on the Black American experience in reference of his close research and “witness” of the lives of Medgar Evers, Malcolm X, and Martin Luther King Jr. Baldwin’s writing has always been heavily involved in the discussion of events and happenings that are, if not parallel but reoccurring from the time of all three men to present day and I think that it is relevant and also helps to add more credibility and value to this documentary because it shows us how important history is, that history is not in the past, but is still continuing to affect us even now. As quoted from the doc: “history is not the past. It is the present. We carry our history with us”.
------------------------
So some relevant quotes from the doc before we begin:
- “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”
- “What you have to look at is what is happening in this country and what is really happening is that brother has murdered brother… and it is because the American people are unable to face the fact that I am flesh of their flesh, bone of their bone, created by them. My blood, my father’s blood is in that soil”
- “The people in general cannot bear much reality… they prefer fantasy to a truthful recreation of their experience”
- “I don’t know if the board of education hates black people, but I know the textbooks they give my children to read, and the schools that we have to go to”
- “You want me to make an act of faith, risking myself, my wife, my woman, my sister, my children, on some idealism which you assure me exists in America, which I have never seen”.
-------------------------
Concept and Perspective
I recommend you all watch this documentary, not once, but twice, or thrice, or as many times as you can. The first for viewing and skimming, the second for analysing and understanding and the rest of the time for respect of Baldwin.
I’ve been making it a big habit of reading from Baldwin’s collected essays for these past few days and have been working on my self-improvement by immersing myself in his works (I also recommend his writing to you all as well).
I recommend you all watch this documentary, not once, but twice, or thrice, or as many times as you can. The first for viewing and skimming, the second for analysing and understanding and the rest of the time for respect of Baldwin.
I’ve been making it a big habit of reading from Baldwin’s collected essays for these past few days and have been working on my self-improvement by immersing myself in his works (I also recommend his writing to you all as well).
Technicalities and Functioning
Being it as a documentary and not a narrative fictional piece or anything of the sort, I felt that it was put together very nicely. There were beautiful b-roll shots against Samuel L. Jackson’s narration from Baldwin’s novel that I thought helped to enhance and bring out more emotion and intention from his writing. Not only this but actual footage or the found footage of his speeches and his participation of being a witness during his time of research and journeying helped to add more depth and dynamic to the film as a whole. A strong orator and a scholarly author and playwright, the way that he speaks allows the audience to be absorbed into his words. He speaks with precision and in a way that allows you to feel what he feels (at least in my opinion) and so that helped immensely in bringing out more character and color of the doc.
Content
From the first quote, Baldwin questions his existence and his humanity in the reality of America (in contrast to his life in Paris, which he goes into great detail in his essay entitled: “Equal in Paris” and possibly a few others) as a Black American. He implies a rhetorical question of: “what am I to you? If I am not human?” and makes a good point in stating that despite not being against Black Americans, specifically or with the intention to be against them, it is the apathy and ignorance that still holds the ideology high. You may not personally hate Black people, but your ignorance or your failure to understand them and the lives of Black americans is what creates this “beastification” of the Black American (and he goes on about this in the doc so I won’t say so much on it).
His entire debate on this idea that we should not see color and this constant denial of racial tensions. It is constantly being pushed aside, we don’t wanna talk about race, we don’t see color, color isn’t important, we aren’t racists, etc. But Baldwin makes the great statement illustrated from quotes 4 and 5 that color DOES matter and that just because you don’t see color does not mean that other people are not being affected by it every single day of their lives. Institutions may not be outrightly racist or discriminatory against people of color, specifically Black Americans, but they do show unfair or unequal treatment of institutions and establishments that are SUPPOSED to help, nourish, and support said people. Things like schools, and I’ve attended inner-city public schools that have not had the same amount of funding support and or financial support to afford textbooks and even toilet paper for students whilst children in public schools out in suburbs (where the majority is of white students) have better funding, more programs and classes offered to students and better schooling conditions overall. Both quotes 4 and 5, again, it asks the bold question of “how can you trust a system that has ALWAYS had it’s back turned to you?”
In the media, there is a constant misrepresentation or a fabricated life of Black Americans being portrayed where life is peachy and people have money and no one is suffering, a reality that does not exactly exist (at least in reference to Baldwin and the majority of the treatment of Blacks in America today). And there’s always this constant obligatory inclusive speech of people of color and I’d like to point out how upsetting I find it and how fake it really feels. In order to be in the green, advertisements for companies and industries of things like beauty products, technology and so on, have this concept of “being inclusive” and it’s not only for racial inclusion at this point but also gender inclusion. Nowadays, companies are making it so that they are showing more of an inclusive media form that involves racial and gender minorities, and I don’t it as a bad thing, I honestly believe that we should be able to have more inclusive media forms but genuinely. Companies are using their inclusiveness give off this slightly pretentious and boasting aura that like “hey look at me, we have gay or trans people in our advertisements, we’re not anti-LGBTQ, we’re so good” or like “hey look at us, we have people of color in our videos and stuff so we’re not racists okay?”.
[And I’d probably get a lot of hate for this but I just feel like many companies that are trying to be inclusive are not as GENUINELY inclusive as I thought they’d be.]
It’s more for the intention of getting recognition from the public or this reassurance of NOT being the bad guy that is so constantly being represented throughout this “fake inclusiveness” that I have noticed within the media of today.
[And I may be wrong or I may be right, but I just feel like it’s not genuine at all.]
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