The black student's paper is on slavery's impact on the American Revolution. To be specific, the student hypothesizes that because the poorest, most financially and socially abused part of the population (blacks) were trapped inside slavery, they were not able to wage war on the upper classes as they did in other countries where much bloodier revolutions took place.
The white liberal women, in her 60s, thinks the American Revolution was so much less bloody than other revolutions that took place around the world because white American democracy is just so...obviously good, just, and right.What I've old you here only describes the first 10 minutes, maybe less.
And now that I think of it, white supremacy has been successfully used to pacify white people in much the same way many white liberals see religion being used to pacify people.
In 2015, as Eleanor Burgess watched a firestorm erupt at Yale University, her alma mater, over an e-mail urging students to avoid wearing racially or ethnically offensive Halloween costumes, the Brookline-born playwright was struck by the dysfunctional nature of the conversations she was observing online.
The e-mail had prompted a response from a Yale professor who worried about the consequences on free speech and argued that students should navigate these questions for themselves rather than ceding control to administrators. The debate exploded into a wider discussion about how students of color felt that Yale could sometimes be a hostile place for them.
Burgess watched conversations among her own groups of friends — on social media and in e-mail and text message threads — devolve into acrimony and recrimination...
The blow-up prompted Burgess to write THE NICEITIES
The two-character drama, set in the spring of 2016, centers on a black student, Zoe (Jordan Boatman), and a 60-something white female history professor, Janine (Lisa Banes), who meet to discuss Zoe’s paper about the impact of slavery on the American Revolution.
Their discussion quickly turns from the arguments and ideas contained in Zoe’s work into an explosive confrontation about broader cultural and historical concerns involving race in America, white privilege, and power imbalances on college campuses...
Read More: https://www.bostonglobe.com/arts/2018/08/23/brookline-playwright-eleanor-burgess-the-niceties-peers-into-abyss-racial-division/QFZOFXbr9lEEvKD6wHByYL/story.html
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| George Zimmerman signing white supremacy symbols --a rebel flag & also a package of skittles, one of items Trayvon Martin was holding when he was killed. |
Ten days after Sandra's death, filmmakers, Kate Davis and David Heilbroner began working closely with the family's legal team, tracking the two-year battle between Sandra's aggrieved family and Texas authorities. With disturbing, never-before-told details about the case, the film is punctuated by Sandra’s own passionate and moving commentary.
Approximately 30 “Sandy Speaks” video blogs, which Sandra created herself, allowed the filmmakers to get to know Sandra Bland in a deeply personal way. Via these videos, Sandy herself emerges as a central voice in Say Her Name — an empowered, enlightened woman of color whose sharp, humorous, charismatic remarks address subjects from educating kids about black history to police brutality to the importance of natural hair.
Part legal thriller, part parable about race in America, Say Her Name takes viewers deep inside a story that galvanized activists across the country.
~HBO
Read More:
https://www.hbo.com/content/hboweb/en/documentaries/say-her-name-the-life-and-death-of-sandra-bland/about.html
Ruby McCollum’s landmark case haunted a southern predominantly white town for decades This is the story of a relatively well-off, married African-American woman who murdered a prominent white doctor/ Senator-elect in Live Oak, Florida after he subjected her to years of rape using white men's "paramour rights." Incredible secrets and terrible truths were revealed during her trial and incarceration which our society still hasn't learned enough from
Zora Neale Hurston, though discredited during that moment in history, wound up being instrumental in drawing national attention to McCollum's story
I'd like to see this documentary redone by a black feminist as some things should have been researched until they were clearer, but as it stands this documentary shows how black women literally sacrificed their bodies and minds to preserve their families. Of course, my view of McCollum's story is an interpretation. And her story is subjected to so sexist and misogynistic interpretations by the end of the documentary by McCollum's own son
This documentary --which I did have to watch in fits and starts, using my rewind button quite a bit-- winds up being a critical find as far as seeing how racism and sexism and rape culture intersected for black women in the Post-Reconstruction and Jim Crow South.
I'd really like to see this documentary re-done. It's fascinating
(Last seen on Amazon Prime With No Description At All-- SO COMPLAIN TO AMAZON)2. "The Rape Of Recy Taylor" (In theaters February 2018)
"Recy Taylor, a 24-year-old black mother and sharecropper, was gang raped by six white boys in 1944 Alabama. Common in Jim Crow South, few women spoke up in fear for their lives. Not Recy Taylor, who bravely identified her rapists. The NAACP sent its chief rape investigator Rosa Parks, who rallied support and triggered an unprecedented outcry for justice.
Our film exposes a legacy of physical abuse of black women and reveals Rosa Parks’ intimate role in Recy Taylor’s story. An attempted rape against Parks was but one inspiration for her ongoing work to find justice for countless women like Taylor. The 1955 bus boycott was an end result, not a beginning.
More and more women are now speaking up after rape. Our film tells the story of black women who spoke up when danger was greatest; it was their noble efforts to take back their bodies that led to the Montgomery Bus Boycott and movements that followed. The 2017 Global March by Women is linked to their courage. From sexual aggression on ‘40s southern streets to today’s college campuses and to the threatened right to choose, it is control of women’s bodies that powered the movement in Recy Taylor’s day and fuels our outrage today."
Pop-out link to the trailer
https://www.therapeofrecytaylor.com/trailer-1/Recy Taylor died at the end of 2017. She was mentioned by Oprah in her #MeToo Speech at the Golden Globes in 2018
3— “Free Angela & All Political Prisoners” (2013)I had already put the "Strong Black Woman" stereotype away as far as being something I aspired to. But for some reason I'd let Nina Simone live in my memory as someone who had been "successful" at being "strong black woman" And she was anything but that.
This documentary really put the final nails in Strong Black Woman's coffin as far as my psyche goes. I highly recommend watching this one.
I've seen a very short documentary on Hamer. I'm pretty sure this is not it. It looks like it's been praised quite a bit and is being sold to schools. If your kid says they're showing it at their school, make sure you go "visit" that day because it looks to be expensive.)
This features a host of talented ladies—including Martin’s Tichina Arnold and Insecure‘s Yvonne Orji—discussing how they deal with racism, sexism and the lack of representation in the industry. -
http://people.com/tv/black-women-in-comedy-documentary-vh1/
"Ever since Venus and Serena Williams started playing in tennis tournaments, they've provoked strong reactions - from awe and admiration to suspicion and resentment. They've been winning championships for over a decade, pushing the limits of longevity in such a demanding sport. How long can they last? In Venus & Serena, we gain unprecedented access into their lives during the most intimidating year of their career. Over the course of 2011, Venus grappled with an energy-sapping autoimmune disease while Serena battled back from a life-threatening pulmonary embolism. Neither Venus nor Serena let their adversities hold them back. They drew their greatest strength from each other."http://www.imdb.com/title/tt2376024/plotsummary?ref_=tt_ov_pl
Tells the real life story of an 80 year old international jewel thief. Features interviews with Doris Payne, her daughter and son, her childhood best friend and law enforcement officers. Doris tells stories that include a daring escape, how she used "sleight of hand", and the first time she "took" a piece of jewelry at the age of 10. As the movie begins we see Doris dealing with her most current charges and the possibility of facing a term in prison. From there the film goes back and forth between the past and the present until we finally learn what her destiny will be after over 50 years as an international jewel thief.
Tessa Thompson is reportedly on board to turn this documentary into a blockbuster movie in the next year or so!
Tubman doesn't just tell about her life as she's been asked. Furthermore she doesn't just tell of the beatings and horrors. She tells about what happened in her life and what some specific episodes in her life taught her about what freedom means. In the second half of speech, she talks about the immediate future, about courage, about her faith in God leading her forward She also talks about the willingness to give up her life, if God would have it be so, while also planning to live a long life.
As I've said before, one of my favorite things about slave stories written by black people lately is that they do not leave the white women out. Miss Anne's, or this case Miss Susan's, hand is reported as having been on the whip repeatedly and for sport.
On Opportunity
If a black man named John Legend hadn't taken his relatively new found power and used it to tell our own black story of slavery, hadn't put his power and money into UNDERGROUND, we never would have gotten to see the performance.
Veteran Emmy winning documentary filmmaker Stanley Nelson is set to premiere his next work, an ambitious two-hour documentary and multimedia project that explores the pivotal role Historically Black Colleges and Universities (HBCUs) have played in American history, culture, and national identity.
An official selection of the Documentary Premieres program at the upcoming 2017 Sundance Film Festival which kicked off this week, the first ever project of its kind on HBCUs is titled “Tell Them We Are Rising: The Story of Historically Black Colleges and Universities.” It features the voices, photos, letters, diaries, home movies and a variety of never before seen or heard media that reveal this important aspect of collective American History, via the many stories from HBCU students, faculty, staff, and alumni. The documentary demonstrates how the 150-year history of HBCUs has influenced generations of Americans and shaped the landscape of the country.
"One of the storylines in “Hidden Figures” centers around a bathroom. Math genius Katherine Johnson, played by Taraji P. Henson, is transferred to a new building, where there are no bathrooms for black women. So every time she needs to relieve herself, she has to run across the campus to a building with a “Colored” bathroom.
Her white boss, played by Kevin Costner, discovers this only when Johnson returns to her desk from a bathroom break, drenched after running for half an hour in the rain. He is aghast, apparently having been unaware racism was taking place under his nose. So he picks up a crowbar, heads to the bathroom, and smashes the Colored Ladies Room sign. Then, as a crowd of black women look on, he delivers a powerful, funny rejection of Jim Crow segregation: “No more colored restrooms. No more white restrooms…. Here at NASA, we all pee the same color.”
It’s a brilliant, dramatic scene. It also never happened"
https://news.vice.com/story/oscar-nominated-hidden-figures-was-whitewashed-but-it-didnt-have-to-be
In one scene the white woman supervisor says something like "I don't have anything against you people." Octavia Spencer's says something like "I know you believe that." But by the end of the movie EVEN that condescending white woman is redeemed as "misunderstanding" when the white woman finally gives the black woman (Spencer) a promotion to supervisor.
You could decide to understand that moment as the white woman deciding to give the black woman a promotion because she needs the black woman to help the white women's section. But it's JUST AS EASY to understand that scene as the white woman having a change of heart because Octavia confronted her and told her she's a racist whether she believe it or not. And I'm sure, the latter interpretation is what white Ted Melfi was going for.
I just can't imagine black and brown children without some personal experience that would make a good base for discussion after the movie is over. Even the smallest black or brown child knows about how evil slavery was and how evil the killing of indigenous people for their land was.
That is, I'm guessing that in black and brown homes the black and brown parents do not explain the white people who officially founded this country in the context of "That's just the way it was back then. People didn't understand it was bad to murder and enslave other human beings" the way white people clearly teach their children about the founding of this country. I've heard variations of this out of white adults mouths too often to be coming anywhere else except their parents.So I don't think I can say the same for white children. I don't know that HIDDEN FIGURES can be straightened out with discussion after the movie.
I don't see white parents trying to explain how white people have behaved and continue to behave in this country for hundreds of years BEFORE they even get to discussing what was left out and added to this specific movie.
Black and brown parents have to explain at least tiny bits of ugly, accurate history at very young ages in order for their children to go to school and interact with white adults and white children that will subtly treat them badly. (Hopefully the aggressions are micro rather than macro when they are small)
I'm guessing white children don't have the same base necessary to have a discussion of the details missing from HIDDEN FIGURES
Again, I think Melfi having a couple of snarling whie faces after the coffee scene and the fake bathroom scene (which is totally unbelievable - watch it again, zero anger in white faces) would have communicated thousands and thousands of words each.
I truly think Melfi hurt this as a history lesson for white people by not making this movie more accurate. And I really think it could have been done with less than 30 seconds worth of film in about 4 to 5 places.
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| TOP HIDDEN FIGURES BOTTOM: THE HELP |
To be specific, THE HELP's bathroom scenes are totally realistic despite being delivered as comedy. The oral histories in black families communicated this white behavior decades before this movie. But for white people this was probably the first time they'd seen how white people demeaned blacks in so many petty ways.
Kevin Costner saves Taraji P Henson again and again. That White German(?) Jewish guy tells Janelle Monae how to raise herself up to the engineer she should already be.
1) black women's heroism is routinely erased
2) a lot of black people carry so much shame from whites that they straight hate any black character not being depicted as some variation of King or Queen. (Not that Octavia Spencer didn't hit the stereotype button a few times in THE HELP, in BLACK AND WHITE, and probably in the upcoming THE SHACK -- which is based on a book so chock full of stereotypes the movie must be better than the book in some ways.)
Via the press announcement: “As the nation teeters on the brink of WWII, a nearly bankrupt NAACP sends Marshall to conservative Connecticut to defend a black chauffeur against his wealthy socialite employer in a sexual assault and attempted murder trial that quickly became tabloid fodder. In need of a high profile victory but muzzled by a segregationist court, Marshall is partnered with Samuel Friedman, a young Jewish lawyer who has never tried a case. Marshall and Friedman struggle against a hostile storm of fear and prejudice, driven to discover the truth in the sensationalized trial which helped set the groundwork for the Civil Rights Movement to come.”
...And based on [a] tweet he posted to his account, it looks like Jussie Smollett is also part of the cast, playing Langston Hughes.
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| SNL's "Heroine A.M." skit hit too close to home with middle class white surburbanites. |
If drug abuse isn't funny to SNL's mostly white audience, then the drug abuse skit must NOT be about black and brown people.
There's no drug abuse "epidemic" as if drug abuse is a disease when black and brown are concerned.
Newsflash: Nothing that contains mocking white people or killing white people is funny.
The recent white twitter uproar over Bomani Jones t-shirt taught us that, yet again.
Whitney's death, in many white run mainstream news outlets was treated like "Oh what a shame she did this to herself."
Hoffman's death was treated like, "Oh my gawd, who killed him. Who gave him those drugs. When is the murder investigation going to begin." Hoffman was a known drug abuser too.
