Black and White

I Am Not Your Negro revisits the conversation on racism through the tale of slavery in the US

THE STORY of the Negro in America is the story of America. And it is not pretty. This line comes nearly at the end of the 93minute-long I Am Not Your Negro, in which we bear witness to a familiar story of racial prejudice and violence — no, not pretty at all — which courses through the veins of the US. It is one that has often been retold, in books, movies and moving personal histories. It is not new. But, with every iteration, we see just how important it is, this retelling, because unless it is faced, it will never be resolved.

Slaves may not be picking cotton in Southern plantations, and there may be no physical segregation any more. Lynchings may not take place today, at least the kind that used to happen with impunity at one time (and we see those dead faces hanging from trees in the film) but the division still exists, and old resentments still run deep.

The film is based on the unfinished book of James Baldwin, in whose immortal words we hear corrosive anger and despair. We see how things may be different and yet are the same in today’s America — a black man being bludgeoned in 1991, a demonstration being met with violence in 2014. There was hatred on the surrounding white faces a hundred years ago —that hatred is still very clear.

The film, nominated for a Best Documentary at the Academy Awards, is a terrific collage of archival material and a voice-over based on Baldwin’s words. You hear the term ‘Negro’ and ‘nigger’ over and over again, and you know that it may have been buried under political correctness, but the world, to all intents and Trumpian purpose, is still black and white.

We see the dead bodies of Malcolm X and Martin Luther King. We hear their impassioned speeches again. We see the ugliness of those who said that ‘God would forgive infidelity but never de-segregation’. We see the guns and batons and white policemen charging and black bodies falling. What we do not see are white individuals championing the black cause — were there none, or was director Raoul Peck not interested in showing any?

You are left, all over again, wondering about how depraved humans can get. As Baldwin says, this is not history. It is the present. This is the kind of film — trenchant, forceful, heartbreaking — I would cross the seven seas for, in a heartbeat. As I write this, I wonder when we, in India, will see a film called “I Am Not Your Dalit”.

Magnolia Pictures James Baldwin in I Am Not Your Negro