I AM NOT YOUR NEGRO
US, 2016, 93 minutes, Colour and black and white.
Voiceover, Samuel L. Jackson.
Directed by Raoul Peck.
This is a very powerful and relevant documentary. While it has a particular American focus, it is illuminating about race attitudes in the 20th century and what has been inherited and how race issues stand at the beginning of the 21st-century.
This is a film about American author, James Baldwin. He is a significant 20th century American literary figure but, from the 1960s on, he had an important role in American consciousness about African- American history.
The title belongs to Baldwin himself. The word “Negro� has passed from common usage, descriptive of African- Americans but with a derogatory past from the slavery era. In fact, during the filming Baldwin gives an explanation of this usage.
The film was directed by celebrated director, from Haiti, Raoul Peck, whose career has focused, in features and in documentaries, on racial concerns, from a drama about Lumumba to an exploration of the genocide in Rwanda, Sometime in April.
What is done here is to assemble an enormous amount of footage, television and film, of Baldwin himself and to edit it into what might be a political essay as well as a political biography. So, the audience sees as well as he is his voice – and with other quotations read by Samuel L. Jackson.
Baldwin was born in 1924, grew up in New York City but in the 40s moved to Paris where he lived for many years. He was able to develop his literary career, the breadth of personality in a different culture – but was also at times dogged by his sexual orientation (which put him, ironically, on the investigation list by FBI director, J. Edgar Hoover).
Baldwin intended to do a book on three significant African- Americans, their campaigns as well as their deaths: Martin Luther King, Malcolm X, Medger Evers. So, there is a lot of material about the Civil Rights movement in the 1960s and these men who, in their way, were martyrs to the cause. Baldwin outlines his relationship with each of the men, admiration, friendship, but some tensions in outlook with Malcolm X.
Baldwin appears in quite a number of television interviews. One of the other interesting features of this film is the assembling of clips from a range of movies. Baldwin is rather critical of the presentation of African- Americans in American feature films, even in those of the 1940s and 50s which had some basic sympathies. Examples of this kind of criticism include the Sidney Poitier- Tony Curtis drama, The Defiant Ones and other films with Sidney Poitier including the 1950s No Way Out as well as Guess Who’s Coming to Dinner.
Baldwin is also interested in music with a number of reflections on the Negro tradition and performers like Lena Horne.
There are some caustic comments on the Kennedys, their New England background and what that meant in their trying to deal with the Civil Rights struggles of the 1960s. The film was a nominee for Academy award for best documentary, 2016. It reflects some of the more recent topical history including riots in cities such as Ferguson, Missouri, with the deaths of black men at the hands of white police. There is also a quote from Bobby Kennedy about there being a black president 40 years after the 1960s and the turmoil – and the presidency of Barack Obama.
A mixture of the entertaining and the enthralling, thought and emotion-provoking.
1. The status of James Baldwin? In literature? Awards? Politics? Culture and race? A significant American?
2. Audience knowledge of Baldwin, the impression of him through the clips, his comments, talks, positions, friends and relationships, issues of race in the context of the US throughout the 20th century?
3. Raoul Peck, his film career, social concerns, his perspective on Baldwin, on American race issues, his editing the visual material with Baldwin’s own comments?
4. The title, the language, the 1960s and race issues, the language about Negroes, later African- Americans? The concept of the Negro, as defined by the white population, slaves, work? Issues of rights to identity, for slaves to be free? Prejudice and violence? The history of the southern states, of the whole of the United States, humiliation and prejudice and violence in the early part of the 20th century, the changes in the 1960s? Baldwin’s three friends, contributing to his consciousness about race? Malcolm X, Martin Luther King, Medger Evers? The portrait of Lorraine Hansberry, the scenes from Raisin in the Sun, her going to see Bobby Kennedy, wanting him to go to the school, for JF Kennedy to go to the school, their not comprehending? Baldwin and his attitude towards the construction of the white American, his criticisms of John Wayne, Gary Cooper, Doris Day? The title and his continuous challenge?
5. James Baldwin, from New York, the early 20th century, growing up as an African American, the decision to go to Paris, his years there, a gay man, J.Edgar Hoover and his comments, his files on Baldwin? The return in the 60s, his greater involvement? With each of his friends, the impact of their deaths, sadness, touches of despair? His not becoming involved with the Black Panthers? His concern about the families and wives of the dead men? His project for writing about these three men – its not being achieved? This film as an alternative?
6. Medger Evers, from the South, his family, as a person, his involvement in race issues, in the South, his being killed, the aftermath? 1964?
7. Malcolm X and his speeches, his stances, race issues, the scenes of his speeches, Baldwin present? The death of Malcolm X? 1966?
8. Martin Luther King, his movement, the important stances in Washington, in Alabama, the marches and the demonstrations? His death?
9. This film and the use of films, black actors, Stepin Fetchit and others in the early part of the 20th century, Sidney Poitier, and scenes from No Way Out and the clash with Richard Widmark as a racist, The Defiant Ones and the link with Tony Curtis? The situation of Guess Who’s Coming to Dinner? Other films? Pressure?
10. The role of music, songs, dance, Lena Horne, Stormy Weather?
11. The perspective of the 1960s and Baldwin and the transition to African- Americans and their position in the 1990s? Yet the riots in Ferguson in more recent times? The election of Obama? Bobby Kennedy’s comment about 40 years an African American president?
12. Raoul Peck and his 21st-century perspective?
